Bound to Happen
by BurnedRecords
Summary: Everything starts with Greenburg, then constantly gets worse. Stiles, as the human, can only take so much. Fem!Stiles. A bit of a retelling of both seasons so far.
1. Season 1

Bound to Happen: Season One

This is all Greenburg's fault.

Honestly, only he could turn such an innocent question into her undoing.

"Greenburg! This is no time to stare off into space! Move it!" Coach Finstock yelled over the normal locker room chaos.

"Sorry Coach, just thinking is all," the young man replied. Coach Finstock blinked for a moment before asking, "Do I really want to know, Greenburg?"

"Well I was just wondering, if lacrosse is our big sport instead of football, then why don't we have any cheerleaders at our games?" Everyone in the locker room turned to the boy, and then turned to look at each other, murmuring their questions and opinions to each other.

"Cheerleaders?" Scott asked, like he'd never heard the word before. Stiles raised an eyebrow at her best friend over from where she was compiling supplies for the players. Even though she was girl, she was their only manager, so she was allowed inside of the boy's locker room. "You know, cheerleaders? 2, 4, 6, 8, and all that crap. They stand on the sidelines and cheer over everything the team does. Leads cheers. Cheerleaders."

"Thank you for that wonderful definition, Bilinski! And Greenburg, keep up with the actual good ideas and I might actually tolerate your presence one day." Greenburg looked over to the coach in astonishment before accidently taking a step forward and falling on his face. Then everyone in the crowded locker room let out a sigh before getting back to the current topic.

Everyone, except Stiles, who really couldn't care less. It's not like it concerned her anyways.

And really, whenever she thinks that, life makes it a point to make her regret it.

They're out on the field now, Scott in line waiting to make a shot at Danny in the goal, and Stiles on the sidelines watching in avid interest as Danny blocks someone else's attempts at making a goal. Something keeps distracting her though, but not the normal shit that had been invading her life like the mysterious alpha or I'm-a-broody-murderer-that-isn't-technically-a-murderer Derek Hale, but Coach Finstock was putting out these waves of wow-I'm-about-to-do-something-I-think-is-a-great-idea-but-it-really-isn't. She honestly doesn't know why she hasn't run for the hills yet, because last time this happened, she was forced to do suicides with the rest of the team so that it could be 'fair'.

"Say Stilinski," Coach says as he turns to her, and since he used her actual last name, this is either going to turn out great, or absolutely horrid. She would have to bet her money on the latter. "I was giving the cheerleading idea some thought, and I like it." She blinks at him, because what did that even have to do with her, anyways?

"And?" she starts for him.

"I want you to do this for the team. Start up the group, get girls to join, start routines, or whatever it is that cheerleaders do." That makes Stiles laugh so hard, she falls off of the bench and rolls in the grass. Her high pitched, loud laugh-giggles are so loud, some of the members of the team are looking over at her, especially Scott, but she can't help it because Coach thinks she is somehow capable of pulling together a bunch of girls to cheer for their lacrosse team.

Her! The clumsiest girl on the entire planet!

Eventually she calms, but she stays on the ground trying to catch her breath as everyone just keeps staring at her. She looks up at Coach, expecting him to just say 'Yep, just kidding', but he doesn't. He just looks at her with his raised eyebrow and serious expression on his face.

Wait a second, oh hell no!

"You can't be serious," she tells him, because with everything that goes on in her life, _cheerleading _defiantly won't be one of those things. But his face doesn't change at all, and all Stiles is thinking about is how she can talk herself out of this one.

And then strangle Greenburg. She will have to do that latter.

She pulls herself up from her position on the ground and opens her mouth to argue her case, but then Lydia Martin pops out of nowhere and takes matters into her own hands.

"Sounds great, Coach. Stiles and I can totally do this." And Stiles has now lost the ability to even _understand_ what is going on because Lydia Martin, who she idolized when she was younger (and might still idolize today), did not help her case at all. Sure, they had become somewhat of friends after she had visited Lydia after the Video Store incident, but this was- Stiles didn't even know what this was.

"But, wait, but I-" and now she was being dragged away by the most popular girl in school to make a cheerleading team. How was this her life?

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

Stiles must have been in shock because of the completely _unbelievable_ events that had just been smacked in her face, because the next thing she knows, she's at Lydia's house. She had been trying to listen to Lydia talk about ideas and designs for cheerleading costumes, and how Allison should join, and some other girls Stiles doesn't know, but she can't focus because how is she even involved in this at all?

"Stiles, are you even listening to me?" Lydia asks as she pushes Stiles lightly before waving a hand in front of her face. "Because you need to pay attention if you're going to be a part of this thing."

"But I don't want to be a part of this," she whines, "I just wanted to be a lacrosse manager." Lydia looks sad for a split second before molding her face into disappointment.

"Stiles, don't you want to spend time with me though? I figured that since we were friends, this would be something fun to do together, right?" Lydia flashes her puppy dog eyes at her and she melts. She didn't stand a chance against those, but-

"We're friends?" she asks in honest confusion, because the only real friend she's had for a while is Scott, but even he had been hanging around Allison more that her now, and she can't believe someone would even _consider_ her friend material these days. Especially someone as perfect as Lydia Martin.

"Of course we're friends! So, now we are going to be hanging out a lot more, since I know Scott hasn't been around lately. We'll spend practices together, and shop for clothes and have sleepovers on weekends! It'll be fun. Maybe Jackson will even warm up to you and then he and Danny can hang out with us."

But Stiles' mind is practically imploding because this is too good to be true. Having friends instead of a friend, more than one friend. _Friends_. She beams with happiness, which apparently is approval enough for Lydia to keep going on planning their cheer squad.

This was turning out to not be too bad.

She is still going to strangle Greenburg, though.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

Of course, this is when shit gets weirder.

Apparently, Mr. Creeper Wolf tells Scott he needs to learn control. Which means _Stiles_ needs to teach him how to control his wolf without having Scott tear out her intestines. Sounds like a bunch of fun.

She eventually comes up with a plan. Sort of.

The plan basically consists of her trying to elevate Scott's heart rate and _hope_ that he controls his wolf and doesn't rip out her intestines. It's the best plan she has, at least.

To start off, she ties Scott's hand behind his back and starts to practice her aim, with actual lacrosse balls, on her best friend. Stiles would admit that it relieved a bit of her stress, all up until he nearly 'wolfs out', but he seemed to get it under control.

Next, she key scratched a car and blamed it on him, causing a group of guys to collectively beat the snot out of Scott, also nearly pushing him over the edge, until a teacher shows up and calls them off.

Finally, they end up in Coach Finstock's Economics class, where Coach grills Scott on his slacking, causing his heart rate to rise. Stiles was about ready to jump up and get Scott out of the classroom, until she noticed the heart monitor slow down. She looked over and saw Allison holding Scott's hand, which must have calmed him down.

"All werewolves need an anchor," Stiles mumbled to herself, "and Allison must be Scott's."

After school is done, she heads to Lydia's house for a few hours. They work on cheerleading tactics, who they have signed up for the squad, and the final details to the uniform. Lydia even somehow improves her abysmal coordination to where she can do a few basic moves without falling over. They eventually collapse on the sheets and just start talking to each other.

Stiles eventually sits up on the bed and stretches for a few seconds, before sliding off the bed and packing up.

"I better head home, I think we can work on the last few details next week, and then we can hold trials after that." Lydia nods in agreement. They say their goodbyes and Stiles is on the road to home.

Until her phone rings and suddenly Stiles is picking up Scott for a half-assed plan that they took all of 5 minutes to make during lunch, and they are heading towards the school. And Derek, too, because apparently he kidnapped Scott's boss because Derek thinks Dr. Deaton is the alpha.

Is it too much to ask to just go home, sometimes?

Anyways, they get to the school, and there he is in all of his Sourwolf glory. And Scott's boss is there too, all tied up in the back.

Kinky much?

"We're going to prove Dr. Deaton isn't the alpha, just wait here," Scott demands as he heads towards the front of the school, Stiles trailing behind. They finally find their destination, the main office, and Stiles turns on the school's PA system and places the microphone in front of her best friend.

"Here I go," Scott says with the bare minimum of confidence. He then proceeds to make the most pathetic noise that Stiles hadn't heard since Scott went those voice changes. She buries her head in her hands and waits out the embarrassment she feels on behalf of her best friend. Stiles swears she can feel Derek roll his eyes from here.

When it finally ends, she tells Scott what is probably a bunch of bullshit, but he doesn't have to know that. It might work though; she did research it for a few hours.

The second time Scott howls, it is a legitimate wolf howl, leaving her genuinely impressed. Derek, not so much.

"Are you stupid?!" he growls out, like an actual growl, as they come back outside.

"Hey, I think it'll work!" Scott defended. Stiles couldn't resist adding, "And it was _awesome_!"

Within the next few seconds, the night completely goes downhill.

Dr. Deaton goes missing.

Derek seems pretty much dead, seeing as how the _alpha_ stuck its hand into his damn back and threw him away like a rag doll.

They run for their damn _lives_. They throw open the main doors and shut them fast, only to realize they have nothing to lock the doors with. Stiles takes a quick look outside and doesn't see the big ass werewolf anywhere. What she does see though, are the bolt cutters they used to break into the school, perfect to be used as a good enough lock to keep the monster out.

"I'm going to get them," she tells Scott after she points them out.

"Stiles," he hisses, but she's already flung the door open and sprinted outside towards the bolt cutters. She leans down to pick them up, only to freeze when she feels eyes boring into her skin. She looks up to see the menacing alpha looking right at her.

She runs for her life again, only this time, the alpha is a lot closer to her than she wants it to be. She scrambles into the school quickly before jamming the bolt cutters down onto the push handles on the door.

Nothing happens. She looks out and sees nothing, just like when she had been getting the bolt cutters. She turns towards Scott, who just looks at her in return.

They are going to _die_.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

The rest of the night passes in a rush of adrenalin, fear, and confusion. Especially when Allison, Lydia, and Jackson all show up. They try calling the police, but apparently someone warned them of kids prank calling about break ins to the school and not to call again.

That's when they turn to her to call her dad.

She can't. She can't get him involved in this. But they were all going to die, and her dad couldn't handle her dying either. She was terrified, and everyone was putting so much pressure on her that when Jackson tries to take initiative to call her dad, she punches him in the face. She is _not_ sorry.

Also, they end up blaming everything on poor, dead Derek, who is dead, and holy shit why is this even sinking in now of all times? Now is really not the best time for a panic attack.

Soon, Scott is going after the keys the dead janitor has on him (with a mixture of flammable liquid), and the rest of them are all trying not to hound her for questions, but they still kind of are.

So she ends up calling her dad. After that is a blur too, including some giant roar and the police finally coming to get them. She remembers looking at her car, that now has claw marks and is missing the battery, but she's so tired and her dad is practically carrying her to his squad car and asking questions at the same time. She doesn't know what she answers with, but it must have been enough because she's finally getting to sleep.

Her dad looks down at her with a confused frown. What was even going on here?

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

Stiles is drunk. She is completely hammered with her completely sober, but not supposed to be, best friend. Words are spilling out of her mouth in a fast drunken slur, trying to comfort her now single best friend. Like everything else in her life, it doesn't work much.

Even in her drunken stupor, she realizes the men that approach her and take their beer are not people you really want to associate with, and she just tries to pull Scott and herself away. But Scott is agitated, and he actually intimidates them into giving them their alcohol back.

She doesn't remember much more after that.

The next day at school, though, makes her try to dredge up those memories, because Scott is way more aggressive than he usually is. But of course, her memory pretty shot to hell.

She somehow makes plans with Scott to help him through the full moon so that he doesn't go out and kill anyone. Stiles parts ways with Scott at the guy's locker room and heads straight to the fields, because ever since she got stuck on cheerleader duty, Coach had intimidated some actual boys into being managers for the team.

Stiles sits next to Lydia, who is having a quick chat with Jackson before he starts practice. Jackson inclines his head a bit as he notices her, and she sees it.

There is a bruise on Jackson's face, right where she punched him, and she does feel a _bit_ sorry about that now. It's not like you can actually _see_ the bruise, she just recognizes that his face is a bit shinier in the area where she remembers shoving her fist at.

Which makes her realize Jackson is wearing makeup, but she is getting off track here.

"Jackson?" He spares a glance at her as Lydia goes quiet. He doesn't say anything, which means Lydia must have told him to be a bit nicer to her.

"So, uh, sorry about your face." Honestly, that could have come out better. Which makes her start talking and explaining, and completely not making anything better. For some reason though, Jackson isn't really offended at all. He just lifts an eyebrow and snorts at her. All she thinks is that she must have made some tiny step forward towards being Jackson's friend. He then turns back to Lydia with a confused face, wanting to say something, but not, and jogs off when Coach calls him.

It turns out, Scott is very agitated. So agitated, that he ends up pulverizing the entire team; even Danny who was just standing in front of the goal. Then, it seemed that Jackson decided to ask whatever he wanted to ask Lydia right then, because it must have really been bothering him.

"Your lip gloss is smudged."

"Really? I hadn't noticed." And that throws Stiles through a loop, because Lydia Martin does not simply _not_ _notice_ her perfection has been slightly smudged. Also, she wonders why Scott looks so smug about it.

When it clicks in her mind, she is slightly perturbed. Allison hadn't broken up with Scott for that long, and Scott was still supposed to be head over heels in love with her, why is he making out with Lydia of all people?

It's a silent ride to Scott's house for both of them. Tonight is the full moon, and Stiles is not so sure this plan is going to work. Scott is supposed to have super strength, he could probably rip the handcuffs apart right now. This was their only choice, the only one they had on such a short notice.

At least Scott's mom was working the night shift tonight.

Soon, they're both inside and heading towards Scott's room, and she can feel the nerves bunching in her stomach. It was now or never.

Stiles somehow tricks Scott into sitting next to his radiator, and she quickly handcuffs his hand to it. Scott releases a low growl and looks up at her in anger.

"Get this off of me."

"No." She pretends that Scott isn't _terrifying_ her right now.

They stare at each other, each unwavering in their convictions, not blinking or moving, and Stiles feels the nerves in her stomach get worse. She looks away first, turning on her heel and heading out into the hallway. Far enough away from Scott, but not too far.

Stiles slides down the wall, her dark brown curly hair coming a bit undone from its bun and falling onto her face. She hears Scott calling out to her, begging her, she can hear the desperate _plea _for her to let him go. Her hands clamp to her ears and she brings her knees up to her chest, and lets her head rest on her knees.

This was torture.

But it suddenly stops, and that is way too suspicious for her not to check up on.

All she sees are a pair of handcuffs, and an open window.

Stiles wants to cry, but like the best friend she is, she is going to look for Scott and hopefully find a way to keep him away from anyone he might want to eat.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

Stiles is still desperately looking, and it's been over an hour. She turns down another road lining the massive amount of woods, and she sees lights.

Police lights.

She pulls over quickly, because she sees the normal officers milling about everywhere, but she can't see her father. As Sheriff, he should be here, but she can't _see_ him. Then suddenly there's a dead body being wheeled away, and air won't enter her lungs anymore.

She can't see her father, there is a dead body. She feels the beginnings of a panic attack, but she's desperately calling for her father until she starts feeling light headed.

But now she's being spun around, and she's scared she'll see some random officer giving her a look of pity, but it's her dad. It's her dad and she can suddenly breathe again.

"What are you doing here?" he asks her in aggravation, but she doesn't even care because she's giving him a bear hug and never letting go. He must understand, because he returns her hug, holds onto her tightly, and they just stay like that for a moment.

"I'll just go home then." Her dad nods to her, and she takes off for her jeep. Once inside, she just sits there until she sees her dad motion for her to get a move on.

She drives home, just hoping that Scott is doing okay on his own.

No one notices the two hunters staring after her in the shadows.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

Apparently, Derek isn't dead anymore, which is news to her. Seeing a guys getting lifted up by the claws gouging into his back while spitting up blood doesn't really scream 'Don't worry, I'll live'. Then again, he does have those unfair werewolf healing powers.

Back to the real topic though, Scott, and by extension Derek, need Allison's necklace. Scott can't just ask for it because they aren't even friends anymore, and Derek certainly isn't going to put forth a team effort for a necklace.

So it's up to her. Perfect.

She's about to sit down at their usual lunch table, when Jackson of all people invites her to sit with him. Jackson, who had earlier broken up with Lydia, and also hinted to Scott that he knew about werewolves. Stiles bit her lip and quickly scanned the cafeteria. She quickly located Scott, who nodded his head, and she took a seat next to Danny. They started up a polite conversation, and when Danny turned to get an opinion from Jackson, he wasn't even there anymore.

Stiles took that time to check up on Scott, so she excused herself, and headed back to where she knew Scott was sitting. Scott didn't notice her presence until she sat directly in front of him.

"Are you okay?"

"Jackson is trying to get to me. He knows I can hear him from wherever he is, and he's taunting me about taking away Allison and you." That makes her raise an eyebrow of her own. Jackson's threatening Scott with Allison… and her?

"Why me?"

"Probably because you're my best friend."

"I won't let him come between us." _That_ seems to knock Scott out of the trance Jackson's putting him in, and he looks at her for a second before smiling. For a second, everything that happened before Scott got bit seemed to disappear, and it was just like old times. Just Stiles and Scott.

"I know." They both grinned at each other for a moment before Stiles reminded herself why she needed to talk to Scott today.

"So, about the necklace."

And everything comes crashing back into the present.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

When Stiles finally got home after the longest day of school, she was going to research werewolf control a little bit more, just to make sure Scott was going to be okay during the game.

Her first game that she would be _cheerleading_ at.

Was it too late to fall into a well, or something?

So, now she had to go home, research a bit, go to Lydia's to get ready with the rest of the team, and then go to the game. Just thinking about it made her twitch, just a bit.

But for now, she was home, and she was going to forget her worries and do some research.

Stiles opened the door to her room and sat down at her desk immediately, not noticing the other presence in her room.

"Hey Stiles," she heard her dad call to her from down stairs.

"Hey da-Derek?" She turned around to answer her dad, only to finally notice Derek Hale was standing right next to her bed. The look he gave her was menacing as he pointed towards the door, reminding her that she had her dad to talk to as well as him. Yay.

She ran to her door and flung it open, shoved the top half of her body into the hallway, before closing the door as much as possible over her middle.

"What did you say?"

"I said 'Hey dad'. What brings you up here?"

Her dad looked a bit sheepish now, a happy grin on his face as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"I just wanted to say I'm proud of you, for finally getting to do your own thing, instead of having to help another team all the time, you know?"

"Yeah, I'm proud of me too," she says as she mentally wills her dad away so she can get Derek out of her room faster. How'd he get into her room anyways?

"Well, good luck, I'll be there tonight."

"Cool, see you then." Stiles watches as her father walks through the hall and back down the stairs, then releases the breath she was holding as she inches her way back into her room.

She closes the door just in time for Derek to push her up against it. By now, Stiles has been trained by both her father (in self-defense) and Lydia (in cheerleading), so her first instinct is to kick Derek Hale where the sun don't shine, with intense force.

Derek drops like a stone, and so does she. That was going to leave a bruise, just like when she had punched him in the face to help save him from the wolfsbane poison. Which she still hasn't been thanked for.

"You-" he starts, but she is having _none_ of it today.

"Before you growl at me like you usually do, I'm going to ask you to get to the damn point, because honestly, I know that's what we both want. Also, this is your fault. You harassed me for no good reason and I reacted, it's what I do." Derek makes a face at her, like he wants to argue the point, before he growls out, "Fine, but don't tell-"

And she cuts him off again, because this is _ridiculous_. "You mean you don't want me to shout 'Hey Dad! Derek Hale's in my room… bring your gun'?" He grunts at her as they both get off of the floor and sit on her bed.

"Where did that text message come from?"

"Elaborate please," because who knows what the hell Derek is even talking about these days.

"The one that was apparently from Scott to Allison, the night the alpha attacked the school." Actually, she had completely forgotten about it after they had all met up, and then started being hunted, but that was a good question.

"I don't know, but I can find out." A quick text and 15 minutes later has Danny by her side at the computer, arguing over his criminal record. He sighs when she mentions it and changes the subject to Derek, who is in the opposite corner of her room reading a dictionary.

"Who is that?" he asks, and holy shit Stiles hadn't even noticed that Derek was still there.

"That's my cousin, _Miguel_." It rolls off of her tongue before she even thinks about it, and now Derek is looking at her like she's lost her marbles. She probably has at some point during this whole misadventure.

"Is that blood on his shirt?" She takes her first real look towards Derek's chest, and there is said blood, flashing it's obviousness to anyone who cares to look. Anyone like Danny. And now she has a plan.

"He does, but I told him he could borrow one of Scott's shirts. Isn't that right, Miguel?" Stiles has never seen a more potent glare pointed in her direction, except maybe from Mr. Harris. He slams her dictionary closed and yanks his shirt off, his tattooed back flexing as he works his shirt off. Stiles does a little victory spin in her chair.

"This, no fit." He growls out, and Stiles wants to kick him again.

"Then find a different one," she bites out sweetly. Derek huffs, which puffs out his chest a little, and Stiles is probably enjoying this more than Danny. Not that she's really looking at Derek, or anything.

The second shirt he tries on is that one blue and orange striped shirt Scott left over at her house on purpose, and she fights down a laugh as he puts it on.

"What do you think of that shirt, Danny?"

"Those aren't really his colors," he says, and Stiles can hear the trap close.

"He's right, try on a different one." Derek practically rips the shirt off of himself and throws it to the floor, which Stiles thinks is slightly rude, before he tugs on another and pointedly sits down.

"So," she says as she turns towards Danny, and he starts tracking the message for her.

And it comes from Scott's mom's work computer. What. The. Hell.

She thanks Danny quickly enough, and he's on his way to the game. She should be going to Lydia's house right now, but…

"Why do I have to drive you there?"

"You know Scott's mom, so it would be less suspicious if you snoop through her things at her workplace." She can't really argue with that logic, but should she really miss this game?

Derek must be pretty good at scenting emotions, because he says, "Do it for Scott." Now she really wants to punch Derek in the face, but she is going to be a good best friend, and help Scott out, _again_.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

"Yeah dad, I already told Lydia I'd be a bit late. Don't wait up." That was all one big fat lie. She told Lydia she wasn't even coming, and now she was about to disappoint her dad.

"You're not going to make it."

"I know," she moans out, but she's doing this for Scott, for his well-being. The sooner they get rid of the alpha, the sooner things get back to normal.

"Oh, and one more thing," she turns to Derek to see what he wants, and suddenly her head has been smacked against her steering wheel.

"Holy shit, what was that for?"

"You know what that was for, now go. Go!" And she goes before he starts to abuse her even more. Can't he even be a little grateful she had gotten him this far? No, why would Mr. Brood want to be thankful for anything?

She's inside the hospital now, and her phone rings. "What, are you really this impatient?"

"Check my uncle's room. He's still technically part of the pack. Maybe the alpha has been there recently and left a clue."

"Geez, okay." She walks around to the instructed room, but there is no one in sight. No doctors, no nurses, no Uncle Hale. "Your uncle isn't even here." There is dead silence for a few seconds before Derek is screaming at her to get out of there.

"You have to get out, my uncle is the alpha!" She can't really say she even heard Derek yelling at her, because she sees _him_, with half his face burned, standing all on his own, looking at her with a maddening clarity in his eyes. Eyes that burn _red_.

"You must be Stiles," the alpha says. A shiver wracks down her spine and his grin widens. She turns with every intention of running, only to see a single nurse blocking the hallway, smirking at her. Stiles turns back to face Peter, then the nurse and back again, before making a painful discovery.

"Oh my God, I'm going to die." Sickening realization crosses her face, and Peter is getting closer to her. Suddenly, the nurse goes down, and Derek is standing in her place.

"Get out of the way," he growls at her. She shoots a look at the both of them before dropping to the ground. Derek doesn't hesitate to leap over her towards his uncle, barring sharp fangs and claws. She watches the tussle for only a few moments before she realizes that this would be a good time to run for her life. As she exits the hospital, she thinks for a split second that she should go back and somehow help Derek.

But what could she do that Derek couldn't? He was the creepy werewolf that could heal from near death situations in 24 hours. She would only get in the way.

With that last thought, she hops in her jeep, and just drives.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

Scott came over to her house in the morning, just after she had finished breakfast.

"Is there anything you need for me to look up, or something?" He gives her a guilty glance before saying, "Or something."

She sighs, but she really shouldn't even be surprised anymore.

"What now? What could it possibly be today?"

Today was apparently save 'Jackson from Hunters' day.

Scott had told her that he'd had a bad feeling about something, and she had mocked him about his werewolf senses, but drove him where he wanted to go anyways. What do they eventually find? Allison's father looking far too pleased with himself than he usually is, and clearly intimidating Jackson from the looks of it.

Stiles can feel Scott's indecision, having to choose between letting Mr. Argent take care of a problem for him, or do the right thing. Sighing, she got into the turn lane, making the decision for him. She pulled into the parking lot, right next to Jackson's douche car, and got out to 'even the playing field' with Scott, as they stood on either side of Jackson.

Jackson, of course, wanted almost nothing to do with them (or was it Scott, he _had_ been nicer to her after all), but didn't want to be with one of the scariest hunters alive. Just as they were convincing Jackson to get into Stiles 'crappy' jeep, Jackson's Porsche started to 'magically' work again.

After Mr. Argent drove off, Jackson immediately flew off the handle.

"Turn me into a werewolf."

"Uh, what?" Scott asks, and this is where Stiles is grateful for being the human sidekick.

Until they start taking their conversation out on her car.

"Hey, can we leave my car out of it?" she asks as Scott goes for another blow to the front. Her hand is tugging at his bicep, but Scott tugs back like he really wants to hit her jeep instead of Jackson's face. It probably had something to do with his werewolf strength that made him hold back, but why her jeep?

Then Scott start yelling about how awful being a werewolf is with the lack of control and the people trying to constantly kill you, but Jackson is so full of himself that he thinks he can just overcome everything.

"It's because you're weak," Jackson hisses at Scott. "You have all of the power in the world, but you don't know what do with it. At least I would put them to good use." Stiles checks her watch, because they have been having this argument for 45 minutes and she just wants to _go_ _home_, and finally Jackson just turns around and stalks off. Just before he gets in his car, he throws a 'Bye Stiles' out and just drives away.

She watches Jackson drive away with a raised eyebrow. Scott lets out a gruff noise of some sort and climbs back in her jeep moodily, watching her as she walks around the car to hop into the driver's seat.

"Do you just want to go home or...?"

"Come home with me." She doesn't question him, she just goes.

They arrive at Scott's house in no time. They ignore the usual emptiness and head straight up to Scott's room. From there, Scott takes her hand, drags her to his bed, and just cuddles up to her. Like a puppy.

"What's this about?" she mumbles from the mattress, because her face is squished tightly against it.

"Jackson's trying to piss me off, using you. I'm scenting you so he'll back off."

"He's not a werewolf yet, you know."

"Don't care," he mutters under his breath, tightening his grip and burying his nose into her neck. They fall asleep like that, cuddled against each other, until Scott's mother comes home and wakes them up for dinner. She leaves soon after, wanting to check up on her dad, who she hopes is sleeping at home.

Of course, her dad is home, wide awake, drinking, and looking over case files. Guilt washes over her in waves, but she has to find out how the investigation is going.

"Can you get me a shot of whiskey?" he asks her. She nods in an affirmative before getting a regular sized glass and filling it to the brim. She can truthfully say she is going to hell.

"What have you found so far?" He gives her a look, clearly asking her what the hell she thought she was doing. She looked away, a blush coloring her cheeks, before picking up a picture of a familiar person.

"Is this Derek?" Her father looked over at the photo she was holding and nodded, then picked up his drink and took a swig. Stiles filled it right back to the brim again. "What happened to his picture?" she asked, gesturing to the bright spots covering his face from view.

"Every picture we took of him came out like that. I don't even understand." Stiles nodded her head before pulling out a chair and sitting next to her father at the table. She looked over a few more randomly strewn papers before asking, "What do these people even have in common?"

"The Hale fire," her father's immediate response is, and wow that alcohol works fast.

"How?"

"The bus driver was filed for fraud over the Hale fire and the video store clerk and those two other guys were suspected arsonists." Stiles' eyes widened in realization. The alpha was going after those people for revenge. She throws a 'thanks' over her shoulder as she prepares to leave, but her father's words stop her.

"You remind me of _her_, you know?" Stiles freezes, because there is no way her dad is even talking about who she thinks he's talking about.

"Your eyes, your loud personality, your hair. You even smell like _her_ sometimes." But he is talking about _her_, that one woman they never talk about. Stiles' father goes to fill up his glass again, but Stiles takes the Whiskey out of his hands.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, but her father isn't letting her drown in her own self-pity, because now they're hugging.

"It wasn't your fault," he whispers back to her. She nods her head in understanding, but she mentally disagrees with her father. They hug for a little while longer, until Stiles convinces her dad to go to the sleep for the night.

She picks back up on her research.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

Stiles doesn't get very far, because Scott calls her and tells her to run into a car with his mom in it.

She is sad to say that is probably the least ridiculous thing she has heard in a couple of months. But she still has to ask.

"Why am I doing this for you?"

"Because my mom is going on a date with the alpha!" Well damn. So did that mean that Derek…?

She swallows the bile that rises and focuses at the problem at hand.

"What does he want with your mom? Is he going to turn her or what?" A strangled noise comes over the phone, and she knows that Scott has been trying not to think about the possibilities.

"Well, my dad is asleep, so I can help. Where are they?"

It turns out they're parked off to the side. She can't see what they are discussing, but she can see Scott's mom pressing herself against the passenger door. Stiles hits the gas.

Scott's mom looks pissed when she climbs out of the car, but Stiles can see the underlying relief in her face. Peter gets out too, and gives her a quick once over before just walking around the front of his car, mumbling to either himself, or Scott. Well, doesn't his face look a little less scarred than it should be?

Stiles is broken out of her bearings by Scott's mom asking if she's okay.

"Oh yeah, I'm totally fine. Except I'm totally sorry about ruining your date, with that guy over there. Sorry about that again. And for hitting his car. Defiantly sorry about that. It was really nice." Melissa rolls her eyes at her, and Stiles gives her a nervous grin in return.

"Go home and sleep, Stiles."

"Yes ma'am."

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

It's finally the weekend, and Stiles sleeps in for the first time in weeks. All of the stress, lies, and guilt have built up to the point where her body just needed her to just _sleep_.

But apparently she isn't the only one under pressure. Her dad comes home for a quick lunch before going back out to patrol and tells her how he pulled Allison over for speeding. Allison promptly lost her grip on her emotions and started crying, then demanded that the Sherriff give her a ticket.

"I'll text her later to check up on her. It's probably the dance that has her so freaked out." That was defiantly a lie, but it would make sense to her dad.

"You should, she seemed kind of confused. Thanks for lunch, I'm heading out."

"Bye! Try not to make anyone else cry!" Her dad snorts and he closes the door.

When she pulled out her phone to text Allison, she saw that Allison had already texted her. About the dance. How coincidental.

Then she sees that it's about dress shopping. With her and Lydia. There are knots in her stomach and her leg is twitching. Should she? Could she really take the chance to look pretty for one night? To look like _her_? Stiles bites her bottom lip and goes into her bathroom.

She looks at herself in the mirror. Her curly brown hair is done up in its usual messy bun (_She_ loved Stiles' hair, Stiles couldn't just cut it off, not matter how much it reminded Stiles of _her_). Her plain, but dotted face (_She_ would always poke at her face, call her pretty), what would it look like with the slightest touch of make up? Her baggy clothes and now mostly ripped jeans, exchanged for a dress (_She_ wore dresses all the time, _she_ was always so pretty)?

Stiles finally decides that she shouldn't waste this chance. Lydia and Allison were going to be there for her, helping her look nice for the first time since _her_. And maybe she would have more confidence to do more things, such as this, when the time was allotted. She sends Allison the okay.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

Macy's, Stiles learns, is scary. There are workers who like to randomly ambush you and spray their perfumes on you. Others pop out of thin air to ask you if you need assistance, giving you tiny heart attacks. They're all so chipper and well dressed and crazy that Stiles just wants to turn around and leave.

Lydia, though, is having none of it. She clamps her hand around Stiles wrist and tugs her over to the prom dress section they have set up of this time of year, abandoning Allison to look on her own. Dresses are being shoved into her arms and she doesn't even know if these are for Lydia, or for her.

She hopes at least some of these are for Lydia to try on, because if they aren't, Stiles will die on the inside. Suddenly her chin is being grabbed, and she is looking Lydia straight in the eyes.

"Your eyes are a really pretty brown," Lydia tells her, and Stiles is momentarily stunned. She was just complemented by Lydia Martin. Lydia Martin. Who is perfect in every way. A blush lights up her face and she looks off to the side, pretending to look at the other dresses in the store.

"Well, I think that's enough for now. Let's go try them on." And that's all the warning Stiles gets before she's shoved in a try on room with half of the dresses they picked out. "When you try one on, come out here to show me too." Lydia gets a groan in response.

Before Stiles can take her clothes off though, her phone goes off.

"Hello?"

"Hey Stiles, have you seen my cell anywhere?"

"Scott? Whose phone are you using right now?"

"Dr. Deaton's. Anyways, have you seen it?"

"Nope, can't say that I have." An annoyed groan escapes Scott's lips and makes Stiles raise an eyebrow.

"What's going on?"

"I can't go to the dance and now I can't find my phone anywhere!"

"Did you really let your grades slip that much?"

"Apparently, yeah."

"Bummer. I even came with Lydia and Allison to get a dress for winter formal." A pause comes over the phone as Stiles' statement sinks into Scott's brain.

"You're getting a dress? I thought you would-,"

"Please Scott, don't make me chicken out here." Lydia must have gotten tired of waiting because she opens the door, without even knocking, takes the phone out of Stiles' hand and says, "Sorry Scott, this is an important girl day and you will have to take up this conversation at another time. Bye!" Lydia hangs up, not letting Scott get a word in for himself, tucks the phone into her own pocket, and walks right back out.

Stiles just stands there, staring at the door and holding the space where her phone used to be.

"I don't hear you getting dressed in there!" Lydia calls out sweetly from the other side of the door. That gets Stiles to start ripping off her clothes like they were on fire, not wanting Lydia to come in herself to 'help'.

They go through ten dresses before settling on a red spaghetti strap dress with a black bow around the waist.

Then she has to help Lydia with her dress choice, and it's the same thing all over again, except she's on the other side of the door and Lydia has significantly less dresses to try on. She tries on three before she's satisfied with a strapless silver dress.

They find Allison with her own strapless silver dress, looking a little confused and uncomfortable, but when Stiles asks, she insists that she's fine.

Allison drops Stiles and Lydia off at Lydia's house, where they had met up beforehand.

"See you at the dance," Allison says as she drives off, leaving Stiles to Lydia's mercy. Not that Stiles knew that.

"Come on, let's go up to my room and see what we can do." Stiles just nodded her head. Suddenly, Lydia grabs her arm and drags Stiles into her house, up the stairs and into Lydia's room.

"Sit here and don't move." Stiles obeys, and watches from Lydia's vanity mirror bench as Lydia gathers up beauty supplies and puts them on the stand next to Stiles.

"Let's start with that hair of yours." A shiver works its way down Stiles' spine as Lydia gives her a positively evil smile. The next few hours are filled with the scariest memories Stiles has bothered to remember. And she hangs out with werewolves.

Lydia does her own make up in a fraction of the time it took Lydia to do Stiles', and Stiles tries to not be astonished. When Lydia is done, she gives Stiles the dress they picked out earlier and tells her to go put it on in the bathroom.

"If you need any help, don't be afraid to ask," Lydia says as she closes the door. Stiles huffs, and starts stripping down for the millionth time that day, being mindful of her hair and face, and instinctively looks in the mirror.

She freezes. It's all she can do at this point, because ever since the day _she_ died, since her _mother_ died, she hadn't tried to look nice for anyone since then. The similarities to _her_ are enormous, even though she had never seen _her_ with straight hair, Stiles knows _she_ would have looked just like this.

Tears are forming in her eyes now, air is refusing to go into her lungs, and she's trying so hard not to have a panic attack right now. Her hands grip the counter, her legs too weak to hold her up, and she leans over the sink, the feeling of bile coming up her throat getting stronger.

Lydia was either really impatient, or Stiles must have made a lot of noise, because Lydia is rushing in and telling her to breathe. She holds Stiles and Stiles holds Lydia back, and suddenly she can breathe again. Lydia lowers both of them to the floor until she is sure that they can both handle standing on their own again.

"There, there. It's okay. You're okay. Just breathe. Breathe," Lydia murmurs into her ear as she rubs Stiles' back. Stiles takes a deep breath before looking up at her friend, and she can see the worry in Lydia's green eyes.

"Are you okay? Are you sure you want to go?"

"Yes and yes," she says with as much confidence as she can muster right now.

"I don't want you pushing yourself into doing something you really don't want to do."

"But I do want to do this," she says. "I, for some weird, obscure reason, want to go to this dance and just be pretty and not _Stiles_ for one day. For just one day, I want to be the girl, the _daughter_ that my _mother_ left behind." And with that, she and Lydia stand up and start to get ready again, like nothing had happened.

Lydia did have to touch up Stiles' make up before they left though.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

Stiles drives them to the dance in her jeep. They go inside together, arm in arm, and manage to shock everyone they pass. Some of them were talking about Lydia, but most of them were talking about the girl with straightened brown hair in a ponytail, beautiful made over face with cute moles, in a red dress with a black bow around her waist, and black heels.

They even pass by Jackson and Allison on their way in. Jackson looks shocked, and Allison looks impressed.

"You look good, Stiles," which makes Jackson's face go from shock to 'holy-shit-what' as he trips, but manages not to fall. She smiles at both of them and continues her way into the gym. Lydia and her dance together, soon joined by Allison after Jackson abandoned her to be at the punch table.

Then, out of nowhere, Scott shows up and steals Allison away.

"I thought Scott wasn't allowed to come to the dance?" Lydia asked Stiles.

"I thought so too." And sure enough, Coach sees Scott and gives chase yelling like a maniac, until he catches up with Scott while he dances with Danny. An uncomfortable silence ensues.

"No, no," Coach Finstock yells out as everyone looks over at the scene. "It's not like that! I was- he is supposed- I mean, everyone, let the dance continue!" Coach walks away, probably planning Scott's funeral.

"Nice cover up, Cupcake," she whispers to herself as the music starts back up. Lydia, however, was looking around the gym wildly.

"What are you looking for?"

"I don't see Jackson anywhere. I'm going to go look for him." Stiles doesn't know how to respond to that, because Jackson broke up with Lydia, and even if she didn't acknowledge it, Lydia still loved him.

"Sure, go on, I'll be fine by myself." And Lydia walks out of the gym, a worried look on her face.

Stiles goes over to the snack table for the first time that evening and waits. And waits. And waits. So when she sees Jackson coming back into the gym by himself, she's a bit agitated. She makes her way through the crowd towards him.

"Where's Lydia?" She asks when she finally gets over to him.

"How would I know?" That scares Stiles, because this is starting to feel like something out of a horror movie. He sees the worry on her face, and guilt is starting to leak onto his. Stiles does not have the time to deal with Jackson's screw-ups and she hurries out of the gym. She looks around the school a bit, and then rushes outside to look for the strawberry blonde.

"Why are the lacrosse field lights on at a time like this?" she asks herself out loud. She faintly hears Lydia calling out for Jackson down there, and her worries increase.

Stiles gets down to the field as fast as her heels can carry her, because she thinks she can see Peter from where she is, his significantly healed face giving her a vicious grin from his spot on the field.

But it's really him on the other side of the lacrosse field, with Lydia in between them.

"Lydia, run!" She screams out desperately, but Peter is already there, ripping into her friend. Lydia drops to the ground, bleeding everywhere. Stiles forces herself to run faster, despite the fact she's in heels, and skids on her hands and knees when she reaches Lydia.

Peter is still there, leaning over Lydia and into her face (his face is bloody, Lydia's blood, she's _bleeding_), showing off pointy fangs.

"What are you doing?" She's trying to be calm, but it comes out slightly hysterical. Hearing her voice betray her makes her force down the tears. She won't cry in front of Peter. She can't.

She can't focus on that though, Lydia is bleeding out in front of her and she doesn't know how long Lydia can stay alive. Stiles doesn't know how to try to help, where to try and staunch the blood flow first, and Peter is still leaning over Lydia, just watching her panic.

"Please get off," she says, not wanting to anger or offend the werewolf who could easily end Lydia's life. He tilts his head at her, blood still running down his face. "Please, just take me instead, kill me instead, just let Lydia go."

"Now why would I do that?" he asks, vaguely amused. She looks up at him pleadingly. "Unless you can find my nephew?" Thoughts flood her mind. Where would Derek be? Various possibilities and lots of flashbacks to remember the past couple of days go by. It hits her like most of her revelations do.

"Scott's phone is missing. It has GPS." That gets Peter's attention. He's smart, Stiles observes, which is really bad for her.

He climbs to his feet and dusts himself off before offering her a hand. She stares at his hand uncomprehendingly. "Come now," he says, "you're going to help me."

"But, Lydia-"

"Please," he interrupts, "I've given her the bite. She'll either die, or become a werewolf."

"No," she says, because she refuses to leave Lydia like this, "let me get some help."

He waits for a few seconds as she texts Jackson, and when she's done, he offers his arm to her like he's some sort of gentleman, instead of a kidnapping, murdering, off-kilter werewolf alpha. She thinks about just walking away, when he gives her a look that promises death, and probably not hers. Stiles looks down at Lydia, who doesn't even look to be breathing, before turning back to Peter, taking his arm, and letting him guide her to wherever they were going.

They ended up going to her jeep. Peter 'graciously' allowed her to drive them to their destination, which was an empty car garage, next to the car she remembered ramming with her jeep not too long ago.

"Is this a bad time to apologize about hitting your car? Because I'm at least a little sorry about that."

"No you're not." Damn werewolf lie detectors. "Besides, this is my nurse's car." Stiles thinks back to that creepy woman who helped block her into that hallway with Peter and looks around the car garage as if she would pop out any moment. Where was she?

"Well, I don't know what you expect me to do," she says. "In order to track Scott's phone, I'd need Internet. I don't think there's any Internet here." Her voice bounces around the empty garage, echoing her point. Peter just smirks at her, going over to his own car and propping up the trunk.

"Shit," she said hoarsely, as she looked down at the familiar dead body of the nurse from the hospital. So that's where she went to. "Why would you even…?"

"I got better," he says as he pulls out a laptop and sets it on the now closed trunk. "Now, type."

Stiles types. She pulls up the correct website and just looks at the login screen. "So," she starts, "what are you going to do once you find Derek?"

Peter makes an impatient noise in the back of his throat and tells her, "Don't think, just type." But she can't, the possibilities are running through her head at an impossible pace.

"You're going to kill people, aren't you?"

"Only the responsible ones," Peter answers with a grin. Bile rises to her throat for the second time that night. She doesn't want to be involved in this, but she wants Scott to be involved in this even less.

"Listen," she says with as much courage as she can muster, "if I do this for you, promise you'll leave Scott out of this." She must sound pathetic, asking for promises from a werewolf who'd kill her in a heartbeat if she wasn't good for something.

Peter sounds vaguely annoyed as he explains about wolf packs, about how they need each other to be stronger.

"He won't help you."

"Of course he will, because it'll help Allison. And you will, because it will save Scott." The tears are threatening to spill down her face, because she knows it's true, just like Peter does. "You two are such _good_ best friends, that you know his username and password." She wills down the tears, and starts typing in the username.

"His username is Allison?" he asks when she types it in. Stiles doesn't have the will to talk, she just types in his password. "His password is also Allison?" He sounds really agitated by now, but not at her anymore, just Scott's regular obliviousness. Something she is all too familiar with.

"Still want him in your pack?" she asks with a certainty in her voice that says 'he does this kind of shit way too often'. She turns to look at him, and he just turns away.

A few minutes later, the laptop dings, indicating that it's found Scott's phone. She's thoroughly confused.

"That's where they're keeping him? At his own house?" Peter looks confused for a split second, before understanding lights up his face.

"Not at it," he says like she should know better. "Under it. I know exactly where that is." This is good, because she wouldn't want to help him look through the woods and have to rescue Derek with him. Suddenly, a howl fills the empty air of the car garage. "And I'm not the only one."

Peter shuts down his laptop and places it in the back seat of his car instead of with the dead body. Another howl fills the garage.

"Give me your keys," Peter demands. She releases a sigh, because of course this guy wants to steal her car too.

"Be careful with her," she says as she hands off her keys. He grips them, before shifting them around in his hand, then bending them with brute strength and giving them back to her. Stiles eyes the twisted keys in her hand, before looking at Peter with a glare, because what the hell was that even for? He gives her a smug smirk before heading towards his car.

"So you're not going to kill me?" she asks before he can get into his car and drive away. He looks back at her, and she questions her decision to remind him of that option. He starts to walk towards her, and she inches away from him.

"Don't you get it?" he questions gently, which completely throws her off. "I'm not the bad guy here." Well he had defiantly fooled her. Murdering people, kidnapping her, hurting Lydia, biting Scott, he sounded like a pretty awful person to her. Werewolf. Whatever.

"You turn into a giant creature with red eyes, and rip people apart, and you aren't the bad guy here?"

"Look, I like you Stiles," which is something she could have lived the rest of her life without hearing, thank you very much. "Since you've helped me, I'm going to give you something in return." She hopes he can raise her _mother_ from the dead, or something equally magical, because anything else would be an insult by this point.

"Do you want the bite?" All activity in her brain slows to a halt, because she's pretty sure Peter Hale, crazy werewolf, just offered to make her a werewolf like any regular person would offer a stick of gum.

All she manages to ask is, "What?"

"Do you want the bite?" Derek's uncle makes sure to enunciate each word, like a parent would to a child when they can't even comprehend the simplest of concepts. "If it doesn't kill you, and it could, you could become like us."

"A werewolf," she says, uncomprehendingly, because why would this guy even offer her something like that?

"Yes, a werewolf, would you like me to draw you a picture, spell it out for you perhaps?" Peter's clearly at the end of his rope, wanting her answer now rather than later. But she doesn't know what to say, how to respond. Peter sees her hesitation, and steps closer.

"That night, I bit Scott because I needed a new pack. That could have easily been you." And Stiles realizes for the first time how damn close she came to being in Scott's shoes. "You would be faster, stronger, more popular, and able to stand on your own two feet, instead of scorned and ignored. You and Scott, you would be equals, maybe you would be even more powerful than him." With that, Peter takes the initiative and grabs her wrist, bringing it up to the air next to his head.

"Yes or no?" Peter asks, and she takes a moment to just look at the man in front of her. Her heart hammers in her chest, blood rushing around her body, sweat dripping down her neck. Should she? Could she be helpful as a werewolf? Would she better as a werewolf? Less of a problem to others?

But…

What would her parents say?

Peter is done waiting. He think he knows what she wants, and bares his fangs, about to plunge them into the soft skin of her wrist, when she yanks her arm back.

It stuns both of them, momentarily. But she gets her wits together, and makes her stand for the first time tonight.

"I don't want to be like you."

"Do you know what I heard over what you said?" That was not what she was expecting for a response, but okay. "Your heart beating slightly faster over the words 'I don't want'." Silence reigns over them for a few second before Peter continues. "You may believe that you are telling me the truth, but you are lying to yourself." Her heartbeat pounds in her ears, not believing what Peter is telling her, because she likes being human, being normal. She does, _she_ _does_.

"Goodbye Stiles," he finally says, and the garage is suddenly quiet, a deafening roar of silence where Peter's offer just was. He drives away, and she just watches, and waits for him to be far enough away.

That's when she breaks. She breaks into a million little pieces and cries. Stiles' knees give out and she's falling over and sobbing hysterically. The close calls, the murders, the blood and gore, the kidnapping are just too much to her. She's weak, and this _proves_ it. She's always known, _always_ _known_, but she thought things could get better. They haven't, and now she knows she's worthless.

It takes half an hour, but the tears eventually stop, leaving behind a massive headache. Using her jeep as support, she heaves herself up and leans against it, trying to figure out what she should do next.

Then she remembers.

"Lydia."

Stiles is very glad that she didn't lock her doors after she had parked, or this night would have been even worse, having to walk anywhere, especially to the hospital, in heels. She takes the sneakers she kept in the back for cheerleading practice, and takes the heels off, already feeling a bit better than she had been a few minutes ago.

"Here goes nothing," she says as she closes her car door and starts off towards the hospital.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

When she finally gets to the hospital, she isn't very surprised to see her dad there. He catches a quick glimpse of her over various hospital staff and makes his way over to her, but stops short when he sees her state. Stiles wonders what she looks like right now, after the night she's had. From her dad's expression, she must look like she climbed out of a dumpster that had fallen off of a cliff.

"What happened?" he asks her, the disbelief clear in his voice.

"I lost the keys to my jeep and I ran here as fast as I could." It's just her luck too, that her voice cracks, indicating she's been crying. She doesn't care about that though, she doesn't care about herself, Lydia is over there and Stiles needs to find out how she's doing. "Is she going to be okay?"

Her dad gives her a look that says she's the one that needs to be looked after in the hospital, but answers her question anyways.

"They don't know." The answer breaks another bit of her soul that she thought couldn't get any more broken. "Partially because they don't know what happened. She lost a lot of blood, but," and her dad pauses, thing through his next words, "there's something else going on with her."

"What do you mean?" She hopes, _desperately_ _hopes_, that doesn't mean what she thinks it means.

"It's like she's having an allergic reaction. Her body keeps going into shock." Her dad sounds so confused, but those words are her guillotine. Peter's words swirl around in an endless fashion, driving her slowly mad. '_She'll_ _either_ _die_, _or_ _become a_ _werewolf'_. She feels the blood rush out of her face, making her look sickly pale to anyone who looks at her. Like her dad.

"Did you see anything? Do you have any idea who or what attacked her?" Yes, she wants to scream. She wants to sit down and confess every single thing that has happened since her father discovered her in the woods looking for half a dead body with Scott. But she doesn't.

"No. No, I have no idea."

"What about Scott?" Where did Scott fit into any of this?

"What _about_ Scott?"

"Did he see anything?" Couldn't he ask Scott himself? Unless…

"Is he not here?" She's panicking now, because if Scott's not here, then Peter could…

"I been trying to call him on his cell phone and I haven't gotten a response." Her mind is going crazy with possibilities and scenarios. She glances towards Lydia's room again, and sees Jackson, who seemed to be eavesdropping on their conversation. He mouth's an 'I don't know' to her, and she turns back to her father with dread in her voice as she says, "You're not going to get one."

Before her father can ask her more questions for her to answer with lies, she flees to the girl's bathroom. One look in the mirror reveals how much four hours has changed her. She went to the dance looking like a younger version of _her_, now Stiles' hair is falling out of its ponytail, either falling limply or matted to the side of her face with her sweat. Make up trails down her face from her break down in the car garage and her face is still a bit red, and her eyes a little puffy. The dress Lydia bought her is a bit ripped up and covered in mud and if you look close enough, Lydia's blood. Her arms are a bit scratched up as well as her knees from when she skidded across the lacrosse field to get to her fallen friend. Her legs are also covered in mud, and various scrapes and bruises. Her feet hurt a lot, from the running in heels, standing in heels, then running in sneakers all the way to the hospital.

She's a complete mess. She's _worse_ than Stiles usually is. And her being Stiles is usually bad enough. There's a distinction she makes, between the girl she was before _she_ died that had her real name, and the girl she became after _she_ died and created Stiles. When Stiles looks in the mirror, that dirty, broken girl that looks back at her is a complete stranger.

Stiles can't look at herself anymore, but she doesn't cry this time. She sucks in a breath, lets it out, then calmly and numbly cleans herself off. Five minutes later, she leaves the bathroom to go find her father again.

It figures that he's waiting out there for her, so when she walks up to him, he says, "Why don't you just sit down and wait with your friends?"

"No," she says, somehow having some energy left to argue with her father, "you know this has something to do with Derek." Her father looks confused for a second, before asking, "Wait, I thought you barely knew him?" And Stiles must be all about digging her own grave today, because she could have worded that better.

"Alright, so we might know him a _little_ better than that," she confesses. Her father's face goes from confusion to anger in a split second.

"You do realize that I'm elected to this job, right?" he asks her, because she knows that he knows that she knows that answer.

"And," she cuts in before he can go on, "if I figure this out, then you'll be reelected, right?" Her dad looks around the hospital, probably trying to find something that actually makes sense.

"That girl in there has nothing to do with a six year old arson case." This certainly gets her attention.

"When did that officially become an arson?"

"We got a key witness," her dad begins, and she opens her mouth to ask who, but he cuts in again saying, "And no, I'm not going to tell you who it is. But, yeah, we know it's an arson. Probably started by a young woman." This, _this_ is what she's been waiting for, because the pieces are starting to fall into place.

"Is she still young now?"

"She's probably in her late twenties," her dad tells her as his cell phone goes off. "I've got to take this."

"So, you don't know who it is?"

"No Stiles!" She knows she's annoying her dad, but this is important. "All we know is that she was wearing a pendent."

"As in a necklace, pendent?"

"Yes Stiles," her dad says as he turns around and heads back down the hall to answer his call. She thinks over this information. A woman in her late twenties who would hate the Hales. It would probably be a hunter, maybe with a few screws loose, since that fire was against their code. Allison's dad was out and so was Allison. Allison's mom was in her late thirties, so that ruled her out too. She vaguely remembers Allison telling her she got that pendent from her aunt. Who was in her late twenties and had a few screws loose enough to break the code, and holy shit, she actually figured this out!

She rushes back to the elevator she took to get to the hospital level she's on, and passes Jackson on the way, who takes it upon himself to try and 'help' her.

"Where are you going?"

"To find Scott," she says as she navigates the hospital hallways with practiced skill. She's been here way too many times to be healthy.

"You don't have a car."

"I'm aware of that, thank you," she grinds out, walking a bit faster, despite her aching feet. He catches up quickly and pulls her to a stop as he turns her towards him.

"Hey, I'll drive; just let me do this alright?" She looks at his face for any deception, before sighing and nodding her head in acceptance.

"Hey, did you bring the Porsche?" she asks suddenly. He nods his head as he brings his car keys out. Stiles snatches them from his hands saying, "Good, I'll drive then." She turns to lead them out, but nearly bumps into Chris Argent instead.

"Sir, ma'am," he starts, "I was wondering if you could tell me where Scott McCall is." Well, could this night get _any_ worse?

"Scott McCall?" she asks like they hadn't been best friends for years. "I haven't seen him since the dance." He nods at her and looks at Jackson expectantly. She turns to Jackson as well and asks, "Have you seen Scott lately, Jackson?"

"I, uh, um," he manages to get out. Stiles would punch Jackson in the face if Allison's dad wasn't right there.

"Oh for the love of God." She is taking a long ass vacation when this was over. Then she was going to come back and punch a lot of people in the face for making her suffer through this shit.

Chris signals the lackey's behind him, and they step up and take Jackson and her roughly by the arms and drag them to a secluded hospital room. From there, they shove them in and barricade the door with their own bodies and lock the door.

"Let's try this again," he says patiently, but the anger shows through. They adjust their bodies on the hospital bed they landed on together, and turn to Chris, who looks severely annoyed with them. "Where is Scott McCall?"

Let it be known that Chris Argent has no qualms with beating information out of a teenage girl who is friends with his daughter. He is actually very good at it. But he doesn't know that she has the upper hand here, the ace up her sleeve. She's going to let him believe he has control of the situation for a few more minutes.

"Let me ask you a question Stiles," he says as he pins her to the locked door, his hands squeezing her arms, where she knows bruises will be for the next week or so. "Have you ever seen a rabid dog?"

"Nope," she says jovially, "but I can put it on my to-do list when you let me and Jackson go."

"Well I have," he tells her, pain reflected in his eyes. She looks over at Jackson, who is being held back by a lackey, looking at her like he wants to save her. But she's going to save both of them. She puts confidence in her look towards Jackson before turning back to Chris. "And the only thing I've ever been able to compare it to is seeing a _friend_ of mine turning on a full moon. Do you want to know what happened?" Stiles can take a wild guess, and even though she hopes she's wrong, she knows she's right.

"No, not really. No offense to your shit story telling skills."

"He tried to kill me," he tells her anyways. "And I was forced to put a bullet through his head." To emphasize his point, he pokes her right in the middle of her forehead. But he's not done yet. "The whole while he lay there dying, he was still trying to claw his way towards me to try and _kill_ me. Like it was the most important thing he could do with his last breath. Can you imagine that?" Considering Scott had tried to kill her before in the boy's locker room, she kind of can. But that was different, way different.

She shakes her head and replies, "No. It sounds like you need to be a little more-," But Chris is done being patient for today, he slams her into the door again and yells, "Has Scott ever tried to kill you on the full moon? Did you have to lock him up?"

"Yeah, I did," she says with certainty, and Jackson is looking at her with concern. She continues. "I had to handcuff him to a radiator, why?" She asks sarcastically. "Would you rather I lock him in the basement and burn the whole house down?" she yells right back at him.

He looks smug though, and she knows she won. Stiles just has to inform him now.

"I hate to dispel a popular rumor, Stiles, but we never did that." It's her turn to look smug now.

"Oh right," she says, "Derek told us you had a code. I guess no one _ever_ breaks it."

"Never."

"What if someone does?" That changes Chris' demeanor real fast.

"Someone like who?" But Stiles can tell that he already knows.

"Your sister." Chris doesn't blink or flinch, because he _was_ expecting that answer. He lets her go and backs away from her, signaling to the lackeys to let Jackson go too.

"Pleasure doing business with you, boys," she calls out as she unlocks the door, and drags Jackson out into the hallway. He breaks out of her hold, then holds onto her arm instead as he leads her to his car, not wanting her to get anymore hurt than she already had.

"I'm still driving," she tells him plainly. He lets out a small sigh and gets into the passenger seat anyways.

She gets an idea by the time she starts up the engine.

"Where are we going?"

"Back to the school first, then to Derek's house." Jackson stiffens beside her, and she pauses to look at him. "Are you sure you want to come?"

"Of course! Why are we going to the school first?"

"If we're going to fight the alpha, we might want some weapons first." The drive is mostly silent after that, both of them lost in their own thoughts. The school's gate is still open, and they sneak inside easily. She stops at the first science room she comes across and starts to lay out ingredients.

"Can I help at all?"

"I would rather you didn't," she said, finishing the first bottle of self-igniting liquid. She is soon finished with the second and they head out of the school again.

"Hold these, and make sure they don't break until we need them to, or we could die." It's sad how calm she is about this situation.

"How often do you do this?" Jackson asks, mildly horrified.

"Way too much," she replies as she steps on the gas. It takes her longer than she wants to get to the Hale house, but once they do, they see Scott tossing the Alpha aside, Chris down for the count, and Allison standing off to the side. The alpha is about to charge at Scott, until she honks the horn to get its attention.

She rushes out of the car, with Jackson on her tail. He hands her the self-igniting chemicals and she throws it spot on at the werewolf. It's too bad he catches it though. She says a quick prayer to whoever was listening at the moment, but Scott's tossing Allison her bow, and she's aiming at the chemicals. Suddenly, the beast is on fire.

Jackson takes that as his cue to throw his own bottle, catching Peter in the chest, setting him ablaze. Peter _roars_, and it's terrifying. He looks straight at Allison, and tries to make a go for her, but Scott is there, beating Peter away from his girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, Allison.

Peter falls to the forest floor, flames still there, but those were dying like he was. He transforms back into his human form, his very naked human form, flesh and hair burnt away. He just stares at himself, like he can't believe it happened to him for the second time. Then he makes a strangled noise before falling over, hopefully for the last time. Scott goes over to check on Allison, leaving Stiles and Jackson standing there awkwardly, as they watch them confess to each other and see Chris get up.

They all hear leaves crunching though, and they turn to see Derek Hale walking over to his burnt uncle. Derek gets a foot on either side before leaning down. She sees Scott out of the corner of her eyes get up from his own crouched position.

"Wait!" her best friend yells out. "You said that the cure comes from the one who bit you." Scott is breathing heavily now, Allison is looking a bit hopeful, and she can feel Jackson's hand slide into hers. She looks up at him, and he shakes his head sheepishly, but doesn't remove his hand from hers. She lets it stay there as long as it's there platonically.

"Derek, if you do this, I'm dead," Scott pleads. Stiles is looking away, though. She knows how this is going to end. She feels Jackson grip get tighter, and knows she isn't the only one. "Her father, her family, what am I supposed to do?"

Faintly, she hears the one voice she never wants to hear again. "You've already decided. I can smell it on you!" Peter growls out at his nephew. She hears the sound of claws ripping through flesh, and Scott's mortified yells, to know it has come to pass. Derek killed his uncle.

The sudden tension in the air in strangling. Her hand squeezes Jackson's for comfort as Derek lifts himself off of his dead uncle. Stiles watches as Derek turns around, with his eyes newly red. His words ring out across the clearing.

"I'm the alpha now."

They disperse quickly enough after Chris called the cops. She hands the car keys back to Jackson and manages to convince him to drive her and Scott back to the hospital. He drops them off, and they sneak up to Lydia's room, not looking too out of place since they had been seen together in the hospital so much since they were young.

They duck under the window as soon as they're in and shut the door behind them. It turns out to be horribly creaky and not stealthy in any way. They get up to the bed, leaning over Lydia, and looking over their shoulders to make sure they won't get caught, and draw back Lydia's covers.

Stiles thinks the worst part about it is that Lydia probably won't wake up no matter how much they poke and prod her. But now Scott is peeling off the bandage, and she can't look, she can't see what she's turned Lydia into.

"Is it completely healed?" she asks after Scott stops taking off the bandage.

"No," he says, sounding perplexed.

"But, the doctor said she would be fine."

"The bite's not healing like it did with me. Which means she's not a werewolf." Stiles is so relieved by that news that she could cry for the third time that night. Her thoughts catch up to her happiness, leaving only cold logic behind.

"Then what the hell is she?"


	2. Season 2

Bound to Happen: Season Two

_Stiles was getting married to Tony Stark. On top of Stark towers. Wow._

_The rest of the Avengers were there, and so was Loki, along with her dad. _

_Was that Nick Fury hiding behind the cake? _

_Anyways, wedding, Tony Stark, Avengers, her. She was wearing a beautiful white dress and standing next to Tony as the officiator kept on talking about the vows that they had made. _

_Suddenly, Scott flew in on a unicorn and stole the punch bowl. When Thor went to hit Scott with his hammer, he tripped on a banana peel and his cape exploded into a glitter storm. The glitter attacked the rest of the wedding guests, and Dr. Banner turned into the Hulk and screamed, "Mashed potatoes!" _

_Tony then turned into Iron Man, picked her up, and carried her off into the giant donut sign._

And then she woke up with a nurse taking out the garbage next to her head. Stiles sat up in the hospital chair she was waiting in and tugged on her bun to make sure it was still secure. Then she looked into the hospital room containing Lydia Martin and let out a sigh. Lydia seemed to be doing better, but she hadn't been able to visit yet. Soon, they would tell her, you can visit her soon.

Soon her fine behind. She's been waiting all weekend and she hadn't been in the room since she and Scott found out the bite hadn't taken yet. Which still confused her.

She suddenly sees Lydia get up, probably to either use the bathroom or shower, and lets hope fill her that she might get to finally talk to Lydia once she's done.

Stiles' stomach rumbles and she figures she might as well get some food before talking with Lydia about the attack. She fishes the correct amount of change out of her pocket, puts it into the vending machine, and watches as it effectively steals her money. The candy she wanted is hanging from its precarious perch, taunting her with its sugary goodness. Grabbing the machine in a bear hug, she tugs on it hard, and then it falls over with a mighty crash. She jumps back, looking around the hallway carefully and about to make a run for it, when she hears a scream.

Lydia's scream.

She rushes into Lydia's room, right behind Lydia's parents, and looks around wildly. The shower is still going, the tub filling up with clear water, an open window, and no Lydia in sight.

"Damn," she says. "Just when I thought everything was going to get better." Stiles leans down and picks up Lydia's hospital gown off of the floor and stuffs it in the bag she had brought for her stay in the hospital. Lydia was out running around in the nude, she realized. It was kind of a good thing; she had to have Scott trace her with something.

Of course her dad is the one to come and gather statements from Lydia's parents. He sees her standing there, just staring at Lydia's bed, and tells her to go home. She leaves the hospital, but she isn't going home. She meets up with Scott and Allison.

"The hunters will be looking for her," Allison warns as Stiles hands Lydia's hospital gown over to Scott. He gives Stiles a once over, probably smelling 'hospital' all over her.

"I'll find her," he says, "Go home and get some sleep."

"No," she says. Stiles caused this mess and she was going to help Lydia no matter what. "I'm coming with you to help whether you want it or not." Scott knows how stubborn she can get and doesn't try to talk her out of it anymore. He leads the way into the forest, and she and Allison follow.

They arrive at the Hale house. Why not? Everything else has had to do with this one house and the people who used to live in it. And the werewolf who still does.

"I don't see Lydia anywhere," Allison tells them, and Scott walks a bit farther out into the clearing.

Stiles is looking everywhere, anywhere for Lydia when she sees it.

"Hey Allison," she calls, and Allison is next to her in a heartbeat. She leans down into the dirt and Allison follows, bringing them inches from the trip wire Stiles discovered.

"Do you think it works?" Allison asked as Stiles poked at it. Scott lets out a yelp, and they both turn to see him swinging from a tree by his legs. "Whoops," Stiles says as Scott thrashes around.

"Stiles," Scott hisses, about to make a remark, before stilling and sniffing the air. "The hunters are coming! Run!" They both find a bush to hide behind just in time to see Allison's dad stalk out of the trees.

The argument is mostly one sided, Chris yelling at Scott, threatening Scott, and practically telling him that he believes Lydia is a werewolf. From the behind the bushes Stiles and Allison hold each other back from bursting out into the clearing and standing up for Scott and Lydia. They wait until Chris walks away, leaving Scott hanging upside down, before rescuing him and exiting the forest all together.

Allison drives back to her house, and Stiles ends up driving Scott back to his. Before he gets out though, he tells her to go home and sleep once more.

It takes four hours and three Benadryl's before she can rest peacefully.

She gets to school the next morning feeling a lot more rested than she usually does, despite the fact she only slept one hour more than she usually does these days, which isn't saying much. She parks in her usual place, and starts to trek towards the school.

"Here, I'll give you five dollars if you go dig through the trash elsewhere," she hears Jackson say, and sure enough, there he is. Picking on the less fortunate than him.

"Jackson, be nicer. You can't harass everyone that isn't as rich as you." He looks over to her with a smug smirk crossing over his features.

"But I don't. I'm nice to you, aren't I?" She huffs, smacking his arm, before making her way into the school building.

People stare at her, and that's enough to make her remember that just a few days ago, she showed up to winter formal with Lydia, looking completely different than she usually does. Stiles bows her head, not used to the sudden attention and quickly makes her way to her locker. And there are boys there, standing right in front of her locker, like they belong there.

They notice her too, so now she's being surrounded by a bunch of guys she's never even met before. Good, nice, _awesome_ Allison comes to her rescue, and helps her along to Chemistry, sending evil looks to those who look at Stiles too long.

Then Chemistry starts and her day continues to plummet from there. She has detentions for the rest of the year with Mr. Harris for talking. At least she got an extra hour of sleep last night, or she might've collapsed by now. Her next class is mostly uneventful. And so is the next.

Finally lunch comes, and all Stiles wants to do it eat and relax without too many people around her. She makes her way out of the classroom, only to bump into one of the members of the swimming team.

"Oh, sorry about that," she says as she picks up her notebooks. He just gives her a long look before saying, "It's cool, but just to make it up to me, you should sit with us at lunch today."

She blinks twice. "What?"

"Come on," he says as he puts an arm around her waist and guides her to the cafeteria. She's so unprepared for this that she just goes along with it. Stiles doesn't question when this guy pulls out a chair for her and tells her to sit there.

"I'm Mike, by the way," he says after a while of just staring at her.

"I'm Stiles," she offers. Mike looks like he's seen the world's most adorable puppy and says, "Yeah, I know." That's different, because last week, no one knew who she was.

"So Stiles, I was thinking-," but Mike didn't get to finish, because Jackson is standing next to her, helping her out of her chair, and dragging her into an empty classroom. At least, she thought it was empty.

"Where's the fire, Jackson?" she asks as he closes the door frantically.

"You went to get _Stiles_?" a voice asks behind her, and she whips around to see Derek Hale _right_ _behind_ _her_. Luckily, she makes a muffled squeak instead of a full blown scream, because that would have drawn a lot of attention.

"What are you doing here? Jackson, what's going on?" Because if she remembered correctly, she was taking a vacation away from this kind of bullshit.

"I asked Derek to give me the bite after I dropped you and Scott off at the hospital," Jackson explains.

"You what?!"

"And his body is rejecting the bite, but he's not dead yet, for some odd reason," Derek adds.

"That's all you care about? That he hasn't _died_ yet? And _you_," she turns towards Jackson, "Didn't Scott tell you how bad things could get? I should strangle both of you!" She's furious. She's never furious, but she is right now. Both boys, because that _exactly_ what they are, are looking at her with concern, but she is so far gone that she can't even bother to care.

"Calm down," orders Derek and she turns around and punches him in the face for the second time in her life. Instantly, she feels a little guilty, but not as angry. Plus the new found pain in her hand made her feel as if she had punched a brick wall.

"I am not apologizing about that," she states, uncaring of the glare thrown her way. "Now, how do you know your body is rejecting the bite?"

"Just today I got a nosebleed, and before you say anything, it was black ooze, not blood. Then it started leaking out of my ears when Derek came to check up on me. He doesn't know what's going on and you were my next best bet."

"I can honestly say I've never read anything about this, but I can try and research some more tonight and tell you what I can tomorrow." No sleep for her tonight, yay.

"Thanks," he murmurs before leaving the classroom. And then there were two.

"So, you don't know what's happening?" she asks, just to make sure.

"All I know is that his body is rejecting the bite in a way I've never seen."

"Do you think he'll end up like Lydia? As something we don't know about yet?"

"I don't know." Silence reigns over them for a few moments, until Derek sniffs the air.

"Why do you smell different today?"

"It's most likely the scent of the entire school's population of hormonal teenage boys you smell on me. Before I had to go help you defeat Peter, I actually looked nice enough for the entire school to notice me for the first time in my life." Derek looks like he's trying to recall that night, trying to remember how she had helped and what she had looked like.

"You looked like shit," he finally says.

"Thanks," she says sarcastically. It's not like she needs his approval anyways. She turns to walk out of the classroom when Derek grabs her upper arm, right where Chris Argent had left some sick looking bruises. Stiles drops to the floor, clutching her arm in pain, and Derek is right next to her, pulling up her sleeve to take a look. His eyes widen and he sniffs her a little harder.

"There's more. Where are they?"

She rolls up her other sleeve and then her pants legs, showing off skin with multiple cuts and bruises. Derek growls as his eyes turn red, and she flinches.

"How did you _get_ these?" Derek asks, because he remembers now, that those were littered all over her body before she even got to his house. His eyes widen in realization. "That girl, Lydia, was attacked, by Peter. You were there." He sticks his face right into her neck and she stills, unable to comprehend what to do about this situation. "I can still smell him on you. What did he do to you?"

She doesn't want to talk about it, because she can barely think about it without crying. And she defiantly doesn't want to cry in front of Derek Hale. But he's holding her hands gently, unlike what everyone else has been doing to her recently, like shoving her into objects, or dragging her everywhere. Even though he was one of those people. Right now, he's just sitting there, waiting for her to talk to him.

She talks. And cries. And confesses. Stiles unloads almost everything about that horrendous night onto Derek.

She doesn't tell him about Peter offering her the bite, though. No need to tell Derek about _that_.

He sits there and listens, soaks up her every word, and when she's done, he nods his head in understanding.

"I felt so _weak_, so _useless_, and now I crying all over you and being a total girl about it. I'm so _sorry_."

"I should be the one apologizing," he says. She shakes her head, because he tried so hard, but she was the one who failed. "I should, we werewolves are supposed to protect the human members of the pack."

"Pack?" she asks, and the caring front Derek put up went crashing to the ground. "Yeah, but now since Scott refuses to be in my pack, he has his own with you and Allison. I've got to go, and you shouldn't miss any more classes." Then he just opens up the window and hops out.

Stiles is momentarily stunned. She had just spilled her heart out to Derek Hale of all people, and he just jumped out of a window, leaving her sitting there in an empty classroom? "What an asshole," she muttered as she fixed her sleeves and pants legs. As she picked up her belongings, she noticed that she had spent the rest of the school day in that classroom with Derek.

"I've finished just in time to go to detention. Great." She walks into his classroom as soon as the bell rings, and Mr. Harris is a bit surprised to see her there already. She sits right in front of his desk, sets down her notebooks neatly, and rests her head in her arms. This was a great opportunity to take a nap, and to try and forget about stupid Sourwolf.

Mr. Harris wakes her up an hour and a half later, warning her she'd better watch her back for the end of the year because of the way he was treated during the investigation of the Hale murders, and she gives him an uncaring stare right back.

Stiles walks out of school that day feeling crappier than she usually does.

Then Scott calls her, right as she's about to get home and start on her homework.

"Meet me at the graveyard, but come in through the forest. Allison's family is having the funeral for Kate."

"And _why_ do I have to be there?"

"Because we're showing moral support to Allison."

"…"

"Because you're my best friend and I want you here?"

"…"

"Because your dad is going to be here fending off the paparazzi and you're super curious about what's going to happen."

"Fine."

She heads towards the grave site with a bad feeling in her gut.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

She's sliding in next to Scott just in time to see a stare down between Allison and someone who could only be Allison's grandfather.

"Is that Allison's grandfather?" she asks anyways, and said old man swivels his head to look in their direction.

"Well, he's defiantly an Argent," Scott replies. The old man starts talking to Allison for a bit, and then sits down. Allison looks in their direction briefly, getting a wave from both her and Scott, before she turns back towards her family.

Stiles has a really bad feeling about Allison's grandfather, but she's supposed to be the optimistic one, so she says, "Maybe he's just here for the funeral. He could be from the non-hunting side of the family. There _are_ non-hunters, right?" Scott just looks at her like she's crazy, and she feels crazy about suggesting it, but just maybe…

"We know what they are, they're reinforcements." They both go back to watching the Argent family, when she feels someone dragging her to her feet. Stiles turns around and sees her dad, gripping both her and Scott by the backs of their shirts.

"The two of you," he grits out, "Unbelievable. Pick up my tie," he instructs her, and even though he's got a death grip on the back of her shirt, she manages to pick up the tie that landed on the ground.

Her father drags them both around to his car the long way, so he doesn't have to be seen carrying his daughter and her best friend around a funeral. He opens the door and orders them in. He gets in the front himself, and they wait.

"415 Atom," the radio suddenly says. Her father picks up his walkie talkie and says, "I didn't copy, did you say 415 Atom?" Scott looks at her immediately and she rolls her eyes and says, "A disturbance in a car."

"Yeah, we were taking a heart attack victim to GOA," the radio replies. "But on the way to the hospital, something hit them." Her father looks confused as he asks, "What? Hit the ambulance?"

"Copy that. I'm standing in front of it right now. _Something_ got in the back. There's blood _everywhere_." That's all she needs to hear before she looks at Scott, gets the confirmation nod, and she gets them out of the back and over to her jeep.

It takes them a while to find the place they are looking for, and then to find a safe place to put her jeep. They sneak through the small bit of forest on foot before they reach the crime scene.

There really was blood everywhere. And the only conclusion that Stiles can come to is that Lydia did this, which means this guys is _dead_ because of her foolish actions.

"What was Lydia doing?" she asks, horrified. "What kept you from doing that? Allison?"

"I hope so."

"Do you need to get closer?" she asks after a moment of silence. Scott sniffs the air a bit, before saying, "Nope, I got it." He stays in place for a moment, before trying to get up. Her hand whips out and catches Scott's jacket in a tight grab.

"I just, I just need you to find her, okay? Please, just find her." Scott looks at her for a moment, surprised that she had just begged him to find Lydia.

"I will," he says gently, and she lets his jacket go. He gets up from the ground and rushes off; leaving her laying on the ground, looking at the carnage she had created.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

Her father gets there soon enough, and she pops out of her hiding place to join him. He starts to reprimand her for sneaking off to crime scenes, when she looks over and sees Lydia.

"Lydia?" she calls out, not believing her eyes. Her dad looks at her like she's crazy and Lydia steps closer to them. "Lydia?" she calls out again, because Lydia looks confused, and cold, and _naked_. "Lydia!" Law enforcement start to see who she's calling out to and they stare in confusion.

"Well," Lydia calls back, her voice wavering. "Is anybody going to get me a coat?" Stiles grabs at her dad's coat and tries to walk forward at the same time, but just falls over. Her dad looks at her on the ground and takes off his jacket before going over to Lydia to give the jacket to her, leaving his daughter on the ground.

They end up driving her back to the hospital after they figure out she has no memories of why she left the hospital in the first place. Stiles sits in the back with her, rubbing her back and soothing Lydia with her babble. After they drop her off, her dad drives them home. He goes to sleep, and she gets to work. Stiles did promise Jackson research, and she had to figure out why Lydia would be driven to go out in the forest for a few days.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

When she wakes up the next morning, her father isn't home. The only thing that even indicated that yesterday even happened was a note left on the table saying that they weren't finished with last night's conversation on sneaking out of the police car to go to crime scenes. Then there was the other note that explained that there had been another murder, so she shouldn't wait up for him at the dinner table. Stiles picked up both notes and sighed as she threw them away. She just couldn't catch a break, could she?

When Stiles got to school, it was like the previous day all over again. She just eventually decided to forego the library and watch Scott practice instead. Scott came out a little before the rest of the team, and when he spotted her, let out a relieved breath.

"Hey Stiles," he said as he got over to where she was sitting in the stands.

"What?"

"I think," he started, then he looked around wildly and spoke a bit softer. "I think there is another werewolf at our school."

"Another?" she asked, alarmed. Because it was one thing to have one named Scott, now there was a whole other person she had to look out for and possibly help them catch up.

"Yeah, he's on the lacrosse team, but I couldn't pinpoint exactly who it was."

"How do you plan on finding out?" because she needed to know if she should just run away now.

"I haven't thought that far ahead yet," he admitted sheepishly. Stiles let out a groan in response before getting to her feet and walking over to Coach Finstock.

"Hey," she called out, grabbing his attention. "I heard Scott really wanted to be goalie today. I figured it would help the team try to make some actual shots through difficult odds you know. Plus, Danny told me his shoulder was aching a bit, so you might want to ease up on him today." Coach nodded and dismissed her. She walked back to Scott with a grin on her face.

"I got you to be goalie today," she tells him. Scott looks at her as if she had told him she had married his father and was going to be his step mother. The very thought sends a shiver down her spine.

"Why would you do that to me?" he whines.

"Because, this way, you can get closer to each player instead of constantly passing whoever it is on the field or waiting behind a single person to take shots at Danny. Now, how you get close to each player is up for you to decide." Scott has fixed his facial expression to awe, and she feels as if she possibly raised his IQ a few points. What an accomplishing feeling. "Now, let's talk about tonight."

"Even though things are going good with Allison, I still hope you got something better than handcuffs."

"I did, you'll see. I just left them in my jeep; don't want to bring that into school." Scott looks a little nervous about that. Good, he should stress over something after all the stressing she had done. "Now go show those guys who's boss, or co-captain. Either or."

Scott nods at her and walks away to join the rest of the team for warm-ups. They don't do that for too long and soon enough, Scott is standing in the goal waiting for the first person to take a shot at him. David, if she can remember correctly, is up first, and charges the goal. Scott, instead of standing there, meets David halfway and tackles him to the dirt. She and the rest of the team flinch as they hit the ground.

Stiles almost starts laughing when she sees Scott lean over poor David and indiscreetly take a whiff of him. Coach is understandably upset about Scott leaving his post at the goal, which makes everything funnier to her. She sees Jackson look over at her, confusion written plainly across his face, and she gives him an innocent smile back. He turns his attention back to the practice, looking mildly terrified. Matt, who is behind Jackson, notices the interaction and looks at her too. She shrugs, because what else is she supposed to do to a guy not in their loop of secrecy.

The same thing happens to the next guy to take a shot, then the next. Stiles is starting to fear Scott will take out their whole team before they find the new werewolf among them. Soon, it's Jackson's turn, and he looks like he'd rather get kicked in the balls then go up against Scott.

"Hey Coach," he calls out, "my shoulder's hurting, I think I'm going to go sit down instead." She's a bit relieved Jackson chose not to go head on with Scott while he's like that, especially with his new condition of bleeding black blood. Matt somehow had moved further to the back of the line, and the next player up was Isaac. She immediately felt bad, because she knows Isaac is given a hard time a lot, and she doesn't think getting pulverized by Scott should be something he needs to experience. But he walks up to the starting position calmly, like he hadn't seen Scott take out most of their players within five minutes.

They charge at each other, and even though she wants to close her eyes, she doesn't. Both boys collide in midair, landing roughly on the grass. To any outsider, it would look like they were having a staring contest on the ground, but she _knew_ what that meant.

Isaac was the new werewolf.

Stiles was going to rip Derek Hale a new one.

Suddenly, her dad is there. On the lacrosse field. During practice. Wasn't he supposed to be working on a murder case?

She runs out to Scott when Coach calls time out. Isaac is being called out by her father and walked a little ways from the rest of the group.

"What are they talking about," she asks Scott, the super werewolf eavesdropper.

"His father's dead," Scott tells her, and Stiles can feel her heart sink. Isaac had already lost his mother; it was something they had bonded over a time or two, but to have to lose his father as well…

"My dad told me there was a murder case this morning. This is what he must have been talking about. Do they think he's a suspect or something? If they do, they can lock him in a holding cell for 24 hours."

"Like overnight?" Scott asks cautiously.

"Yep. On the full moon too. Great."

"How good are the holding cells at holding in people?"

"It does a great job at holding in people. I'm not too sure on werewolves. Why don't you ask me tomorrow if it isn't all over the news?"

"Stiles, remember when I said I don't have the urge to maim and kill?" She distinctly remembers that conversation from before she bought the chains for Scott, and nods. "He does." Fantastic.

Her dad starts escorting Isaac off the field, and she wants to go with him so bad to make sure Isaac doesn't do anything to him. Stiles has worked far too hard to keep her father from getting killed from this supernatural shit for him to die tonight on Isaac's first full moon.

Isaac turns around briefly to lock eyes with them, signaling he had put his own werewolf eavesdropping powers to use, before turning back around to keep pace with her dad.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

They're sitting in Chemistry trying to figure out how to not have Isaac unleash supernatural fury on their police force. Because who needs Chemistry when you could save people from werewolves? Mr. Harris would probably disagree with her, but he's turned around and writing something on the board, so his opinion doesn't count.

"Why would Derek even choose Isaac?" Scott asks, like she has some sort of insight into his brain and understands Derek completely. She would like everyone to know that she doesn't.

"Maybe the bite is more likely to catch in teenagers, instead of kill them. And it's not like he can go around biting normal kids who have a million friends, people tend to notice when those kids go missing."

"Since he's a teenager, doesn't that mean your dad can't hold him?"

"Not unless they have proof, or a witness." Wait a minute. She turns around, only to see Danny sitting by himself, no Jackson to be seen. "Hey Danny, where's Jackson?"

"He's in the principal's office, talking to your dad." He looks at her like she should know this, but she can't know everything.

"Why?"

"Maybe because he lives right across the street from Isaac." Danny says it like it's obvious, but that was the one answer she didn't want to get.

"Witness," Scott whispers.

"We've got to get to the principal's office," she says, because as much as she's gotten to be friends with Jackson, this really isn't helping, and he's quickly put himself back on her shit list.

"How?" Scott asks her like they've never been in trouble before in their lives. She's about to make up some bullshit plan when Mr. Harris decides he wants to start teaching again. Stiles rips out a piece of paper from one of her notebooks and lobs it at his head. It hits dead on, causing the class to laugh at his expense.

"Who in the hell did that?" he asks immediately. She and Scott both point their fingers at each other.

A full minute later, they're both waiting outside of the principal's office trying to catch up on the conversation they missed while they were in class.

Stiles had no idea that Isaac was being abused. Her heart drops a bit more. Isaac hadn't had his mother for long before she died, and his older brother was also dead. And to have that happen to him, it was no wonder Isaac took the first chance at escape he got. Even if it was agreeing to being a werewolf and being in direct contact with Derek.

She's so busy feeling bad for Isaac that she doesn't realize her dad is done conversing with Jackson until he's stepped out of the room. Stiles pauses for a moment before quickly opening a magazine and covering her face with it, even though her father already knew it was her. He stands there for a moment, before letting out an exasperated sigh and walking off.

Both her and Scott watch him walk away, but are immediately shaken out of their thoughts when someone clears their throat behind them. They turn around and see Allison's grandfather standing there as if he own the place.

"Won't don't you two come on in." It's more of an order than a question, really.

And it turns out, he does own the place. Kind of. Allison's grandfather is now their principal.

He goes over Scott's files first. "Scott McCall. Not the best academically, but it seems you've become quite a star athlete." Scott can only nod his head in agreement, because she can tell he's scared out of his mind.

"Ms. Stilinski," he says next, and she looks up. "Perfect grades, but not too many extra-curricular activities."

"Actually, I'm kind of a cheerleader, and I used to be a lacrosse-," but she gets interrupted

"Aren't you the Scott McCall that dated my granddaughter?" Well okay then, ignore her. She wasn't important at all.

"Ah yes, _dated_," he puts the emphasis on the past tense verb.

"Relax Scott; you look like you're swimming in shark infested waters. Now listen, I don't want to seem like the bad guy-,"

"Yeah right," she mumbles under her breath. He does a stellar job at ignoring her again.

"But since it's my first day, I have to show support for my teachers. Someone is going to have to take the fall and stay behind for detention." The room goes quiet, but Stiles is too busy picking at a loose thread on her newly ripped jeans to notice it. She looks up suddenly, feeling eyes on her, and she sighs.

The things she does for Scott.

Well, another detention means another nap, so she can't be too mad about it.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

Mr. Harris wakes her up four hours later. She thinks there should be a law against keeping students that late, but she can't think about that now. Allison has been calling her a lot in the past hour, which means it must be something urgent.

"I'm so sorry; Mr. Harris just literally let me out of detention."

"Well we need to do something _now_," Allison tells her, worry in her voice. "They were asking me all of these questions about Lydia and how she was attacked by Peter, and then they sent this guy out-,"

"Wait," she interrupts. "What guy?"

"He was dressed as a Sheriff's deputy."

Realization dawns on her. "They're sending him there for Isaac," she tells Allison.

"He was carrying this box, it had something on it… Like a carving, maybe."

"What did it look like?" She hears papers shuffling and can hear Allison fumble the phone a bit.

"I sent you a picture," she finally says, and Stiles opens her inbox to see a picture of wolfsbane.

"Shit."

"I'll try and deal with him. You should head down to the station and handle things from there."

"Right," she replies and they both hang up.

"Here I come, Isaac." She was going to prevent this, no matter what.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

By the time Stiles got to the station, the moon was high in the sky. Did she mention she picked up Derek on the way? Because he just jumped out of nowhere, making her slam on the brakes, and just hopped in her car without any warning.

So, they're at the station, and Derek wants to distract the woman working at the front desk.

Hahaha, no. The way she sees it, Derek will stand there, be emotionally stupid, and get them caught when she tries to sneak past her. That will not do, not at all. He makes a move to get out, and she grabs his leather coated shoulder.

"Whoa, whoa, you aren't going in there." His eyes gesture to her hand on his coat, and she takes it off with an eye roll.

"I was exonerated." And he seems to think that gives him a free pass to just walk into a police station when he intends to help her do something mildly illegal. Or very illegal, depending on how you wanted to look at it.

"You're still a person of interest."

"An innocent person," he insists. That _almost_ makes her laugh, but time is of the essence.

"You? Yeah right." He just looks at her and shrugs his shoulders, which tells her 'what can you do'. She remembers that she wants to punch him in the face, but holds that feeling down for later. "Okay, fine. What's your plan?"

"To distract her." Why oh why did she have to deal with this?

"Uh-huh, how? By punching her in the face?" Which she really wants to do to Derek _right_ _now_.

"By talking to her," he says, and it hits Stiles that they sound really childish having this conversation.

"Okay, just… give me a sample. What are you going to open with? Don't be shy; I'm a girl, so you can practice on me."

"…"

"Dead silence, beautiful, I've never heard anything to absolutely heartwarming. It makes me feel girly and tingly on the inside. Any _other_ ideas?"

"I'm thinking of punching you in the face." She frowns at him, because that's her idea, dammit. Not her getting punched, but her punching him. Yeah. She was really on punching people lately. In the facial area.

Stiles just lets him go after that. He can find his own way around without her help; he was a big boy, after all. She gets out after him and slowly makes her way to the door, wanting the desk operator to be sufficiently distracted by the time she sneaks inside.

She's hears him start to complement her, and she grudgingly thinks he's doing a pretty good job, but she wanted him to be a bit faster about this. Stiles' patience gives out, and she sneaks across the room quickly and heads to her father's office. She puts in the code she's known since third grade, only to find the lock box empty.

Stiles hurries out of her father's office, looking for anyone who might have somehow gotten their hands on the keys, when she bumps into a guy she doesn't recognize. That should have been her first clue.

She tries to stammer out an apology and a question at the same time when she looks down and sees what's left of an arrow sticking out of his leg. This must be the guy Allison distracted. And he must have been warned about her too, because he's suddenly grabbing at her, and she falls into him. Stiles tries to call out for help, tries to remember what to do in situations like this, but she's not getting anywhere. The man drags her by her armpits, one of his dirty, blood doused hands covering her mouth, while the other keeps the needle filled with wolfsbane closer to her neck than she is comfortable with.

She sees a flash of red and grabs at it, knowing that it's the fire alarm. A few feet later, he drops her to the ground, the alarm blaring all around them. Stiles sees the empty cell first, and feels all of the blood rush out of her face. The man must see that she's not struggling anymore, and looks at the empty cell himself with horror.

Suddenly, Isaac pops out of nowhere and tackles her kidnapper to the ground, claws and teeth out, snarling with all he has. As Isaac throws the guy around, she shuffles around on the ground, trying to find a safe corner to hide in.

The hunter aims the needle and goes to stab it in, when Isaac catches his arm, and then brutally breaks it. Isaac then proceeds to grab the man's head and bash it against the wall, knocking him unconscious.

That's when Derek finally decides to show up, and he smashes the dropped wolfsbane with his shoe. Isaac briefly looks at him, decides Derek is too powerful to go up against at the moment, and turns to her. Stiles adjusts herself against the wall, not breaking the eye contact Isaac establishes. He makes a move, like he's about to jump at her then tear her apart, but Derek steps between them, and lets out a mighty roar.

Isaac immediately backs off, cowering against a wall, clearly petrified. The good news is he's back to his human form.

"How did you do that?" she asks over the alarm. He slowly turns to her and says with nonchalance, "I'm the alpha." Well she knew that, but she wasn't going to argue with him about that right now.

Stiles gets to her feet and makes her way over to Isaac. He's still shaking, and he whimpers a bit when she touches his shoulder. Derek looks over at her like he can't believe she'd touch Isaac after what happened. She rubs her hand down his back and starts whispering in his ear.

"Don't worry, it was just the full moon. You wouldn't believe how much Scott has already attacked me, how many times I've almost died within the past few months." That was meant to be comforting, but she wasn't perfect.

"We need to go. _Now_."

"He can't leave; he'll be wanted after this if you just leave. I'm sure we can come to a nice conclusion if we stay here and wait for my dad. In fact, I have an idea…"

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

"-And that's what happened," she wrapped up for her father. It's just her, Isaac, and her dad, seeing as Derek left before the police force could find him in there, sitting together in an interrogation room.

"So that unconscious man, who isn't a worker here, came to murder Isaac, because he was good friends with his father, and you were coming to check up on Isaac. You found an arrowhead and plunged it in his leg, but he still managed to take you hostage. He was the one who forced open the door, trying to make it as if Isaac was trying to get out, then went to inject him with that substance. But you got away and pulled the fire alarm, distracting him enough that Isaac got free, broke his arm and you crushed the substance."

"Yes," she says with confidence. Her father lets out a long breath before rubbing his hands on his face. "I think you should look elsewhere for the killer," she says, breaking the silence.

"And why is that?" her dad asks tiredly.

"Because even though Isaac has 'motive', I can testify that he wouldn't harm a soul. I've seen him in lacrosse practices. I've had quite a few conversations with him. He just isn't capable of such things, like ripping off his dad's car door and brutally murdering him. He only broke the guy's arm because he was threatening _me_. I think what you should be focusing on instead would be where Isaac is going to live."

Her father gives her a long searching gaze, before doing the same to Isaac.

"And where do you suppose he could go? He has no other family, and the state won't want to take him in if he's a possible murderer."

"Couldn't he come home us?" Her dad sputters and Isaac stiffens beside her. "I mean, we live in a two floor house, and we have a few guest rooms that we have never used. That we are never going to use. So we could put one to good use by letting Isaac stay with us. In such a difficult time in his life, he needs to be around someone familiar, you know?" Stiles hopes that Isaac can hear her underlying message; that she wants to help him through being a werewolf.

Then, to ensure her case, she pulls out her ultimate weapon: the kicked puppy face. It's not something she uses too often, as she doesn't want people to get used to it, but her father has never been able to deny her anything when she pulls those babies out. Her dad stuffs his face into his hands once he realizes what she's done, but it's too late. He's already seen it.

"Stiles," he says, still not looking at her, "could you please leave the room while I talk with Isaac about moving arrangements. In fact, just go home for the night. I think you've been through enough."

"Of course!" she says as she morphs her face back to her normal cheery one. As she gets up, she notices Isaac look at her with a face akin to awe. She pats his shoulder comfortingly and leaves the room.

When she's finally out of the station, she gives herself a pat on the back. She feels as if she's starting to make up for what she's been doing for the past however long this has been going on. A new worry enters her mind though.

Jackson.

It was the full moon, and she had forgotten about the other possible supernatural of their group. How could she be so _stupid_? Stiles gets into her car and drives. Even though speed limits were probably broken, she makes it there in record time.

The first thing she notices is that there is a car sitting outside of Jackson's house. It could have been a new car they had just bought, but there's someone in it, and they would've put it in one of their many garages if it was. She parks her jeep and goes to the passenger side window to tap on it. The window rolls down to show her Matt, the local recreational photographer and lacrosse player.

"What are you doing outside of Jackson's house?" she questions, because she knows that they aren't the best of friends. Or friends at all actually.

"Jackson bought out one of my video cameras tonight, and I wanted to see what he was doing with them. So far, I have a few hours of him sleeping." He was trying to record himself? Of all of the stupid, moronic-

Boys. She will never understand _boys_.

But she had to see what would happen to Jackson for herself. If he started dying, she could call Derek or Scott and they could help out. It was a high hope, at least.

"Would you mind if I joined you?" she asks politely. He gives her a raised eyebrow, but nods his consent. Stiles opens the passenger side door and slips in. Matt raises his phone, and there is Jackson, snoozing away. She's already bored just looking at it, but she was going to stick this out. She was going to do this for Jackson.

Stiles doesn't have to wait long. Its five minutes into her watching it that Jackson starts to slowly rise from his bed. His head turns towards the camera and he opens his eyes. They're pure white. Both she and Matt scream a little and drop his phone. Matt looks stunned and she has her hand gripping at her heart because her heart is pounding a bit too fast.

"What the hell was that?" Matt whispered.

"I have no clue," she responds. She reaches towards the ground and picks the phone back up, her hand trembling with terror at what she might find.

Jackson's room was there, but no Jackson. Stiles looks at Matt, and he looks back at her before looking back at the screen. Suddenly, Jackson pops back up on the screen again, scales covering part of his body and shaking like a possessed man. She screams again and tosses the phone at Matt who catches it and turns the device off. Darkness floods the car and all Stiles can hear is their labored breathing.

A shadow jumps out of Jackson's house and Stiles momentarily forgets how to breathe. It crawls across the yard and behind the car. The car bumps slightly as something jumped on its roof, and both she and Matt grab for each other. She can hear claws clacking on the metal as the creature slowly moves forward.

Then it's quiet.

Too quiet.

And slowly, but surely, claws start to appear from the top of the windshield. Claws slowly morph to fingers, and fingers soon turn into full scaly hands. They rest there, on the windshield, and don't do anything else. Neither of them dare to move or speak, they just stare at the two hands resting on the car's windshield.

Soon, Matt shifts a bit, and slowly reaches his hand out. Stiles watches him, amazed that he would even consider trying to touch something like that, even through glass. But as soon as she thinks it, she feels guilty. That creature is Jackson, and not too long ago she was trying to help Isaac not feel like a mindless creature, even if he did attack her. So she gathers her will, and follows Matt's lead, touching the hand closest to her a bit slower than Matt does his.

Then Jackson slowly inches down a little bit more, his head finally coming into view. She and Matt both give each other a quick glance before focusing back on Jackson. Then it hits Stiles like a brick.

"You're taking this awfully well," she whispers, not wanting to raise her voice lest Jackson decides to become violent all of the sudden and kill them.

"Trust me, I'm having a mental breakdown right now, but if I show it, I'm afraid it'll kill me." She winces, because that's basically how she feels right now, but she knows Jackson is in there somewhere.

"I'm going to try to negotiate with him or something. Stay in the car." Matt gives her a startled look, like he can't believe she would be stupid enough to do something like that, but doesn't say anything in protest.

Stiles opens the door and Jackson's eyes lock onto hers. She slowly exits the car, her hands in the air as a sign of peace. They don't break eye contact as Stiles closes the car door with her hip. Jackson doesn't move. He just stares at her, as if waiting for her to do something. Stiles offers her hand out in front of her, sticking it palm up a few inches away from lizard Jackson who was still lounging on the roof of the car.

Jackson looks at her hand for a few moments, either evaluating how good she would taste as a snack or confused by her friendly gesture. He then proceeds to lick her hand.

"Uh, gross," she said as she wiped her hand on her jeans. "Jackson, please never do that again or I will punch you in the face as soon as you turn human. You know, I should probably start carrying around mace with how my life is going these days."

She hears the other car door open and close, and now Matt is grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her around like a madman.

"Are you crazy? That is a giant lizard, and you think that's _Jackson_?"

"What did you expect? You were watching the video as I was a few minutes ago, right? I think I made a logical assumption based upon that. And now that I've seen that Jackson isn't going to murder anyone, or at least us, I think I will go get some curly fries because I am starved."

Matt hesitantly nods before letting her go.

"Should we leave him like this?" he asks.

"No, I think I should call Derek. Maybe he knows what Jackson has turned into."

"Derek Hale?"

"Yeah, it's a really long story. Maybe I'll tell you sometime that isn't now." She picks up her phone to call Derek, but is stopped when Matt snatches the phone out of her hands.

"That's a bit rude, don't you think?" she asks sarcastically, holding her hand out because she wants her phone back now, thank you very much. He gives her this odd look before saying, "No. You see, I think things are going to be a bit different now."

Stiles' eyes widen before taking a step away from Matt, but ended up bumping into Jackson.

"What are you talking about?" she asks frantically, because she can't even understand what's going on right now. But he doesn't explain anything to her. He just gives a look to Jackson and sudden everything goes dark.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

Stiles wakes up in a panic. She flops around a bit on her bed before she falls off of it and lands in a heap with her sheets falling all around her.

"Ouch," she mumbles into her carpet before starting to untangle herself from her covers. "What a super creepy dream. I would take marrying Iron Man over Jackson turning into a lizard and weird guy Matt being a creeper any night." Stiles hears a quiet laugh from her doorway, and looks up to find Isaac there, leaning in her doorway.

"So, I guess you live here now."

"Yep. Moved in last night. Your dad tried to wake you up when we both got back from my house, but you were dead to the world. You should have seen your dad; he almost drove you to the hospital because he was afraid you were in a coma. I told him you hadn't gotten much sleep lately and was just catching up. Really, you should try and get more sleep instead of staying up all night researching for something you don't even benefit from."

"Just because I don't benefit from it, doesn't mean I shouldn't research it. We might need some of this information someday, and then you will be thanking me a million times over." Isaac lets out another snort before walking out of her room to give her privacy.

Then she noticed that her hair was still in a bun, her clothes from yesterday were still on her body, and she felt as if she hadn't taken care of her personal hygiene last night.

"I must have been super tired last night. I can't even remember the drive home. But I get some strange dream instead. What a wonderful way to start the morning, I must say."

A quick shower and a teeth brushing later had her bouncing downstairs to make breakfast. This was Isaac's first day at their house and she was going to make it awesome. Now where was that pancake mix?

A few minutes later, and the table was filled with blueberry pancakes, scrambled egg whites, and whole wheat toast. Nothing too unhealthy, and universally loved by all. Maybe she would ask Isaac's preferences later. She wiped the small amount of sweat off of her forehead and started to set the table.

"Let me help you with that," said a sudden voice behind her, causing her to drop the plates. Isaac, with his super werewolf speed, caught them before they hit the ground and set them carefully aside. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," she breathed out, getting her heartbeat under control. "You just startled me is all." Isaac nodded his head and picked the plates back up and set them around the table. "So," she started, "you and my dad had a conversation after I left last night."

Isaac paused, looking at her with a slight blush on his cheeks. "Your dad wanted me to _understand_ that I'd be living with a girl and I shouldn't do anything _untoward_ to you or he would do horrible things to me." Stiles feels a blush flare up on her own cheeks and starts to rearrange the food on the table.

"Well, I'm sorry you had to suffer through that."

"No, it's okay. I totally understand. He was really nice after that, and it makes me grateful to be here, you know." Isaac ducks his head down and looks at the floor, not knowing what to do with himself. It breaks Stiles' heart a bit, and she pulls him into a hug. He hesitates for a moment before hugging her back.

"Hey, I'm glad to have you here. _We're_ glad to have you here. I couldn't just leave you to the mercy of Derek and his burned down house to live in. I swear I'm going to have to talk to him about getting a real place to live if he insists on making his pack bigger."

They pull away from each other as her father starts to come down the stairs. They have a civil breakfast with each other before they split up. Her dad is off to work, and she and Isaac are going to school.

"Grab your stuff, and I'll drive us there."

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

School so far wasn't sucking as much as it usually does.

And she thinks that in the girl's locker room before gym, so of course that's when shit hits the fan. It's her turn to climb up the wall. It's one of the few things she has always been pretty good at. _She_ used to take her rock climbing when she was a kid. _She_ was all about adventure.

Stiles finishes in less than a minute, because she could never forget how to rock climb, ever. But her climbing partner, Erica, is not having too much luck. Why was she even doing the wall? Wasn't she epileptic? She doesn't say it out loud though; she always hates when people try to stop her from doing things just because she had ADHD, but when Erica starts having an attack, she starts to regret her decision.

Gym is over after that, and she's getting changed when she hears the boy's locker room slam open and multiple sets of feet running into what should be and empty gym. All the curious girls go and join them.

She runs to Scott's side because she sees he's holding someone. It's Erica, having an epileptic fit. People behind her are screaming as she dials for an ambulance.

Well. There went her good day.

The next day goes pretty much the same way. It starts off nice, and then it slaps her with a piece of harsh reality.

Right now she has to go meet up with Boyd. Now don't get her wrong, Boyd was a totally nice guy, he just never really talked to anyone or really tried to make friends. And he was stingy about how much the ice rink keys cost.

Why fifty dollars? Scott owed her so much for this.

"Thanks," she says as she gets up to leave the table. Boyd looks genuinely confused for a moment before nodding and going back to eating his Doritos. She goes back to her usual table and slams the keys down on the table. Scott looks mildly scared.

"Scott," she says sweetly as she smiles, showing off her teeth, "do you know how much money I just spent on you?"

"Ah, no?"

"Well, let me give you a hint, it's more than twice the amount I wanted it to be. And with all of this werewolf shit going on, I need this money. A lot. You owe me fifty dollars, kay?"

"Okay," he mumbles into apple as Isaac sits down next to her. Scott immediately tries to protect her honor, or something like that.

"What are you doing here?" he hisses, and she realizes that she forgot to fill Scott in on Isaac's new living arrangement.

"Eating?" Isaac asks as he bites into a piece of chicken for emphasis. Scott looks to her for back up and she rolls her eyes. Boys.

"Isaac lives with me now." Scott's eyes go wide. "Not like that, he's in the guest room. He's part of the werewolf group now. Better to include him than let Derek try his hand. That would be disastrous not only to us, but to Isaac and probably the rest of this town. This way, I feel like I'm doing everyone around me a bit of good."

It's then when Erica strides in looking completely badass and pretty. Pretty badass. Erica has the entire cafeteria's attention, especially theirs'.

All she can think of is that Derek really needs to warn them about who he's going to make a werewolf.

Erica leaves as soon as she steals some poor guy's apple, who's practically drooling over her. Scott gets up to follow, and she just lets him. Her head drops to the table, and she feels a hand on her shoulder. Isaac's hand.

"Thanks," she sighs out as she attempts to drag the worry back into the small box she's been keeping it in lately. Isaac's hand tightens and she looks over to him, her face still looking worn.

"How long has this going on? How long have you been involved?" he asks, concerned for her.

"Technically, since the day before school started. If you ever regret your decision or something goes horribly wrong from here on out, you can totally blame me. This entire mess is my fault anyways." Her voice is cheerfully fake, and her smile is stretched a bit too wide.

"You can't blame yourself for-,"

"Yes I can," she interrupts with a hard voice, her face going serious. "_I'm_ the one who dragged Scott out into the forest that night. _I'm_ the one who left him alone that night. It's _my_ fault that Scott got bit and this entire mess happened in result of it. _It's_ _my_ _fault_." She's crying now, in front of Isaac. How _pathetic_ she must look.

Stiles grabs her things and rushes out of the cafeteria and just starts walking. She's aware Isaac is following her, wanting to give her space but not wanting her to be alone. The voices echo around in her mind, the worry bubbles up again, the guilt starts to suffocate her, and she realizes a bit too late she's having a panic attack.

She grabs at a random door, wanting this panic attack to pass in private, where no one can see her, but Isaac is there, helping her inside and closing the door behind him.

"Stiles," he says as he helps her to the floor, "I need you to take deep breaths and relax. Breathe Stiles. Please." But she can't do anything besides panic; she's getting lightheaded because there simply isn't any air to breathe. He fumbles around in her pockets, and makes a small noise of triumph when he finds her phone. Isaac doesn't even get the chance to find someone to call, because Scott is bursting through the door. He had probably heard her heartbeat speed up and ran from wherever he was to help.

Scott doesn't waste any time on questions, for she knows he's seen this too many times and knows what to do. He takes her from Isaac's grip and hugs her as he whispers soothing words in her ear.

Air is getting easier to breathe now, but she's really tired. All of those sleepless nights are hitting her hard, and the last thing she sees are two worried faces before she blacks out.

Stiles wakes up in the nurse's office, feeling rested. Considering she had just passed out from a panic attack and lack of sleep, she wasn't very surprised. Seconds later, there are five worried faces hovering over her. She groans and pushes Scott's hand away when he goes to touch her.

"I'm fine," she says as she pushes herself up. Or, at least she tries to, but five sets of hands are pushing her back onto the cot. A sigh escapes her this time as she lays down on the cheap, crinkled paper covering the cot from her 'germs'.

"Seriously, I'm fine."

"You're not fine," Scott tells her with a frown on his face.

"Yeah," Isaac adds. "The nurse said you passed out from exhaustion."

"You haven't been sleeping much at all. It's a wonder you're still functioning," pips up Allison from beside Scott. She looks to Jackson and Lydia for backup and they just shake their heads at her. Even they thought Stiles was a mess right now.

"School's almost out, so I'll drive you home," says Isaac, his voice leaving no room for argument. Stiles nods and gets up, this time the others let her. "If you feel woozy, tell me," Isaac says as they make their way down the hallway, leaving the others behind.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Isaac looks over to her before focusing his attention back in front of him.

"Because you're being nice to _me_. Before yesterday, no one knew I existed. No one paid attention to me, even if they knew I was suffering, they didn't care. But when you found out, you did something about it. You prevented me from becoming a fugitive and invited me into your house. Even after I attacked you, and with the possibility of me attacking you again. I'm nice to you because you deserve it, and you don't deserve to be hurting like this." She opened her mouth to reiterate what she had told him during lunch, but her cut her off with a look. "I don't care if you think you caused every single bad thing to happen to anyone. You've punished yourself enough, past enough, and you don't even deserve it. You've got the bad end of the deal here, and you need to cut yourself some slack."

By the end of his speech, they had made it out to Stiles' jeep. He carefully helped her inside, then got in himself. Isaac took his time driving them home, not wanting too jostle Stiles around too much. When they got home, Isaac helped her out, then inside, then up the stairs to her room.

"Just, try to catch up on sleep."

"Okay," she mumbled into her pillow. Isaac hesitated.

"You're going to get on the computer as soon as I leave aren't you?" Stiles doesn't bother to say anything, because werewolves are lie detectors. "I guess I'm going to have to stay in here with you to make sure you rest." She sits up at that, but once again she is pushed back down. Isaac jumps on her bed and cuddles around her, just like Scott had the day Chris Argent had tried to interrogate Jackson. It was surprisingly comforting, and before she knew it, she was drifting off to sleep.

When she woke up, Isaac was still there. She was immediately glad her dad was busy, because if he had come home to see them like this… Isaac would probably be a murder suspect again.

Isaac whimpers, as if hearing her thoughts, and tightens his grip on her. Stiles finds it cute, until he does it again.

"Isaac?" she whispers to him, trying to wake him up gently. "Isaac, are you okay?" Another whimper escapes his lips and he starts thrashing around on her bed. His claws come out and into her arms and she can see tips of fangs protruding from his lips.

"Isaac?" she asks a bit louder, ignoring the claws in her arms. He just shoves them in deeper. Stiles raises her own arms up to grab his shoulders and starts shaking him, wanting to rid him of his nightmare.

Then everything goes fuzzy, like she's watching a really old movie. She sees what she presumes is Isaac's dad throwing objects at Isaac and yelling. A cold feeling settles in her gut, and she wants to go and help, but she can't do anything but watch. And suddenly she's back in her room again.

Isaac's eyes pop open too, his golden eyes searching for danger. Once Isaac sees he's in her room, he relaxes, before stiffening again.

"Blood?" he asks, and looks down to his hands, where his claws have imbedded themselves in her biceps. His eyes widen and he gently slides his claws out and jumping up from the bed.

"I'm so sorry Stiles, if I had known what I was doing-,"

"But you didn't, so it's okay. It seemed you were having a pretty nasty nightmare. Do you want to talk about it?" He shakes his head and keeps his eyes on her still bleeding wounds. She bites her lips, not wanting to tell Isaac she had intruded on his memories and wanting him to share when he felt comfortable enough.

"Can I at least patch them up for you?" he asks hesitantly.

"Sure, I keep the first aid kit on my desk over there, since I've needed to use it more often these days." Isaac tenses at those words, and she mentally berates herself for it. "It's not you, I've been in other skirmishes before you joined the group, and turned out fine every time."

"I don't like the idea of you getting hurt," Isaac says as he starts pulling supplies out of the box.

"Well neither does my dad or Scott, but shit happens to me anyways. No one likes having their loved ones hurt, but it just happens sometimes." He reluctantly nods as he cleans out her wounds and puts bandages around them.

"I'll just go to bed now," he says after he puts the first aid kit back where he found it.

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about your nightmare?" she asks again, just want to make sure.

"I'm positive," he tells her, and shuts the door behind him after he leaves. She just sits there in the light of the moon for a moment before going to bed, not knowing that at that moment, Lydia was having a hallucination of Peter in the ice rink while Scott and Allison tried to figure out how to calm the girl down.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

She hears about the ice rink incident the next day at lunch.

"-And then I ran out of the photo booth to see Lydia just screaming at the ice. At first I thought she had broken a bone or something, but she was fine. Just seeing things, I guess."

"Well, her year thus far hasn't been that normal," Stiles points out. "Lydia's seen Peter in both of his forms in frightening situations. I surprised she hasn't just moved away with all of the horrible things that have happened to her so far." Scott concedes to her point and looks out the cafeteria window to think. All of the sudden, he jerks towards her with confusion evident on his face.

"I asked Erica who else they were going to turn."

"And?"

"She wouldn't tell me, said I'd have to figure out for myself." She raises an eyebrow, because Scott couldn't really focus on anything that wasn't Allison related these days for more than five minutes.

Stiles gave a quick sweep of the cafeteria, trying to catalog who was there and who wasn't. A memory came out of nowhere and hit her like a ton of bricks. '_And it's not like he can go around biting normal kids who have a million friends, people tend to notice when those kids go missing._' Her head swivels over to Boyd's usual table. Empty.

"Well, damn."

They split up. Scott gets to go to the ice rink to look for Boyd while she gets to go to Boyd's house to check there. It doesn't take long, and soon she's bounding up the driveway and pounding on Boyd's door and yelling Boyd's name. She hoped his neighbors weren't home or this would be super embarrassing.

Suddenly, someone is tapping her shoulder and she spins around with a squeak to see Erica.

"Oh, hey Erica. How are you doing? You look like you're doing a lot better these days. I guess the bite will do that to you. I mean look at Scott, he's doing a million times better, except with grades. He's having trouble with grades right now. But you look like you're taking this really well. Hahaha." It's not her most eloquent ramble, but she is mildly proud of not going completely off tangent and talking about oranges or something. "Well, look at the time, I ought to get going and find Scott. We have this thing to do, you see." Erica nods her head, but grins viciously. Her hand comes out from behind her back to show her what looks to be a car part. A quick look at her jeep over Erica's shoulder proves that, yes, Erica did rip that out from her car.

Now she's going to have to get that fixed. How money efficient.

"You know, others have asked for the car keys to prevent me from going anywhere," she tells Erica. Erica responds by hitting her in the face with her car part.

She wakes up later in a dumpster.

"I'm going to kill Derek."

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

Stiles ends up calling Triple A. The guy who comes to tow her jeep away helpfully tells her she smells like she's been rolling around in the garbage. She helpfully tells him that even though they are a small town, there are low-cost gyms here. He silently tows her truck away after that. Even though she usually isn't that much of a douche to anyone, her day had already been shit without that comment.

Oh God, Jackson was starting to rub off on her.

That's not the problem now, though, because she knows that Erica was sent over to distract her. Which means that Derek does want to bite Boyd, and Scott is facing them by himself. She has no way to get over to the ice rink to help though, so she ends up walking home.

When she trudges through her front door, she expected to find an empty house. Instead, she finds Derek, Isaac, and Erica. All in her room, of course.

"Well, I certainly don't remember inviting you in, except Isaac because he lives here now."

"Erica has something she wanted to tell you. Isn't that right, Erica?" Isaac asks Erica before pushing her towards Stiles. Stiles, of course, backs up a bit, because the last time she got within arms distance, part of her jeep was shoved in her face.

Erica looks a bit put out, and maybe a little guilty at what she had done, so Stiles is willing to give her a chance.

"I'm sorry I tore some of your jeep out and hit you with it causing you to lose consciousness, and then shoving you in the nearest dumpster so no one would find your unconscious body in Boyd's driveway." Stiles blinked, then let out a heartfelt laugh, followed by girly giggles. Laugh-giggles.

She manages to stammer out an 'apology accepted' before starting to roll on the floor, laughing hysterically. The werewolves watch her in confusion, and soon Isaac started laughing, then Erica did too. Derek's lips twitched up a bit, watching them, but Stiles was too busy flopping around on her floor to notice. The laughter eventually fades away, leaving them all breathless.

"What was that all about?" Erica eventually asks shyly, like she didn't know if she was allowed to participate in laughter with her after the event or not.

"It's just," Stiles paused to swallow down the giggles that threatened to rise again, "It's just that all the other werewolves have threatened me with 'ripping my throat out with my teeth' or just plain trying to kill me, that being hit with a car part and waking up in a dumpster just seems funny in comparison. Sorry if that doesn't make any sense, but I think that's hilarious."

"Because instead of threatening, I just did it, and because it wasn't even a death threat?"

"Yeah, it doesn't make much sense, but I thought it was funny. So, is Boyd a werewolf now?"

"Yep." Why does Stiles even try to prevent these things anymore?

"Are there going to be anymore, or are you satisfied with what you have for now?"

"I needed three betas," Derek tells her. "And because Scott refuses to be a part of the pack, I needed one more after Erica."

"Well, if you ever want to make the pack any bigger, warn me next time, and we might have fewer accidents on my end. That sounds like a wonderful idea to me." Derek looks like he's about to protest and she adds, "This is my business, because I may not be a part of your pack, but this is still my town, my dad is still Sheriff, and all of your problems seem to affect me these days. So you will be warning me about these things, clear?" Stiles doesn't know where she got the balls to stand up to Derek Hale, but she refuses to back down now.

Derek stands right in front of her, maybe an inch or two taller than she stands, and looks down at her. He takes a nice long look. Isaac and Erica in the background swap significant glances with each other, and Stiles steels herself even more, not daring to look away from Derek's gaze for a second.

"That's fair," he eventually says as they blink together, and he moves away to her door and Erica follows.

"Wait," she calls out, and Derek looks back, sensing the urgency in her voice. "Did you actually come through the door this time?" she asks, and Derek snarls a bit before storming down her stairs with Erica on his heels. Isaac lets out a small chuckle and follows them down after a few moments to make sure the door is locked after they're gone.

"I can't believe you stood up to my alpha, Stiles," Isaac says as he starts up the stairs again.

"Neither can I," she replies as she heads towards the bathroom to take a shower. Because even she was starting to smell how awful that garbage was, and she wanted to feel clean again.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

She learns the mechanic is going to look at her car in a few days, probably because she had called the tow guy fat. It wasn't her fault she took a dumpster nap and woke up with a headache and didn't really want to deal with anyone's shit once she woke up. Most of that had worn off by the time she got home to face the wolves, but that was mostly the exhaustion speaking.

Anyways, when she told Lydia about it at lunch, she had suggested a shopping spree to get her better clothes. What in the world did that even have to do with her jeep sitting in a repair shop for a few days?

"What does this have to do with my car sitting in the shop for a couple of days?" she asks Lydia.

"I know the mechanic there, and he's willing to lighten up the price on pretty girls, if you know what I mean." Lydia's tone is slightly suggestive, and Stiles just stares at her.

"How about this," Lydia says. "I'm going to go to your house, throwing away everything I don't like or you don't have a special attachment to, and we are going shopping for a whole new wardrobe."

"I think that's an awful idea," she responds as Erica and Isaac sit next to her.

"I think that's a great idea, Stiles," Erica says, and who invited her into the conversation anyways?

"Great," Lydia says, as if Stiles had agreed with her idea all along. "I'll come by your house tonight and get started, then tomorrow we'll go shopping."

"It's sounds like I'm going shopping nude tomorrow, then." Lydia gives her an evil smile, and suddenly Stiles doesn't like the direction this conversation is taking. Not that she liked this conversation to begin with.

"I'll let you borrow some of my stuff. In fact, you can meet me at my house, and I'll get you all prettied up for our mall adventure."

"Can't I just keep the clothes I have now?" she whines. Lydia shakes her head in disagreement.

"Nope. I feel like I made some real progress with you during winter formal, and I want you to go forwards, not stay on this drowning-in-your-clothes fad."

"But they're comfortable," she argues.

"And your new closet full of clothes will be comfortable the sooner you accept them into your life."

"You sound like one of those door-to-door Christians. 'Have you accepted Jesus into your life?' But seriously, I think I'm good."

And like a pro, Lydia ignores her completely and keeps talking. "You can come Erica, since you've gotten over your condition and are flaunting it like a pro, and Allison can come too. Girl's Day!" she squeaks, as Stiles tries to convince the floor to swallow her into it and never let her come out again. It doesn't work.

Then the rest of the day passed way too quickly, like it was eager to watch her suffer soon. And sure enough, the next thing she knows is that Lydia is in her room, throwing out about everything in her closet.

"Where do you get some of this stuff?" asks Lydia as she holds up a particularly tacky shirt. Stiles just shrugs, because she hasn't gone clothes shopping in a while. And even if she did go shopping, they would just end up torn and dirty because of the whole werewolf expedition she's involved in. Which is why she doesn't exactly want to go through with this. At all. Lydia gives her a significant look and she gives her an innocent smile back. "Can you go get a trash bag, or three? You have a lot of clothes to either give away or throw away."

They end up using four. Two for charity and two that had all of her torn jeans and shirts that no one would ever want to wear. The only clothes Stiles had left were the ones she was wearing and her pajamas.

"Now, you can wear those to my house, then I'm getting you dressed up in something of mine. Allison is picking you up since your jeep is otherwise incapacitated, and also driving all of us to the mall. Get a good night's sleep, alright?" Stiles just nods and says goodbye as Lydia skips out to Allison who had arrived to pick her up.

"I hope we aren't going to Macy's," she says to herself as she gets ready for bed.

The next day arrives too quickly. Stiles barely has enough time to pull her hair up as Allison drags her to the car, buzzing with excitement. Allison even breaks a few speed limits trying to get over Lydia's house because she simply so _excited_. Stiles wished she could be the slightest bit happy about what was about to go down, but she's scared. This is a big leap forward for her. She really hasn't tried to look her best since formal, and guys were _still_ hitting on her. Guys like Mike, who kept trying to bump into her casually or start up a conversation.

They're at Lydia's house soon enough, and Allison starts jumping up and down impatiently as Stiles slowly removes herself from the passenger seat. Lydia's already on the front porch, talking calmly to Erica, both just waiting for Stiles to come within their reach.

When she gets close enough to the front porch, they surround her on all sides. Stiles lets out a sigh and resigns herself to this cruel fate.

Allison is on hair duty while Lydia and Erica take turns on makeup, all of them conversing in hushed tones over the different styles and choices they should choose. She thanks her lucky stars when Allison pulls her curly hair back into a simple ponytail, and she thanks them again when Erica and Lydia go for a light makeup and touch up deal.

Then Lydia breaks her heart when she shows her what she's going to be wearing.

"Can't I go in these clothes? The ones I'm already wearing?" Lydia crinkles her nose in disgust.

"No, you wore them all of yesterday. Besides, you're going to look super cute in this!" Stiles wanted to bash her head into the closest wall, but decided to put on the light blue dress with white leggings and white flats instead. Lest Lydia give her those puppy eyes. All of the girls look pleased, and Stiles can't help but let a tiny smile grace her lips, even though she's embarrassed and doesn't think she pulls the look off too well.

"I knew you'd look fabulous!" Lydia declares. A blush rushes to Stiles' face at that, and she turns to the others who are nodding in agreement. "Now, let's get to shopping."

Of course they end up at Macy's. But they spent only 30 minutes in there, until they dragged her to some other clothing store. Each of them is carrying three bags on each arm, all of them for Stiles, by the time Lydia declares them done.

Allison drives Stiles back to her house first, but before she can get out, Lydia grabs at her shoulder. "I want to see you wearing those clothes, got it?"

"What else can I wear? You already threw my other clothes away." Lydia looks proud that Stiles has accepted this and releases her grip. They all help get her new clothes into her closet and leave shortly after that with goodbyes and hugs.

As soon as they're gone, a sharp whistle comes from behind her. Stiles whips around to see Isaac leaning in the kitchen doorway, smirk on his face.

"You look nice," he says. Another blush graces her cheeks as she stands awkwardly in front of their closed front door.

"Thanks," she finally responds. "Lydia thought it was high time she went a little further in making me girly again."

"Again?" Isaac asks, and she freezes, because she did not mean for that to slip out.

"Yeah," she manages to force out. "When I was little, I used to be so girly, but then _she_ died, and…" Stiles doesn't need to continue, because Isaac understands completely. His entire family was gone, he gets her. Come to think of it, it's what's kept their little ragtag group compatible.

Stiles had lost _her_. Her dad never ever spoke about _her_, and always had odd hours. It had changed everything about how she lived.

Scott's parents were divorced, his dad not even speaking to them while his mother worked odd hours as a nurse.

Allison hadn't lost her parents, but they were hunters, so the possibility was practically imminent. Her own aunt already killed because of her past actions.

Derek's family burned in his house because of a psychotic hunter. His sister maimed by his uncle, then killing that same uncle because he was also a crazy psychopath.

Jackson was an orphan since probably the day he was born. She wasn't too sure about his situation, but she knew he was trying too hard to live up to being a Whitmore.

Lydia's parents were going through a nasty divorce, and they tried to make it up to her by giving her countless amounts of money so they could scream at each other in peace.

Isaac had lost his mother first, then his older brother. After being abused for years by his father, his father was literally ripped apart. Then he got blamed for it until she could convince her father otherwise.

Erica's parents tried their best, but having an epileptic daughter was too much for them, and they stopped caring years ago.

Boyd's parents were also going through a divorce. No one knew too much about the situation. Hell, no one really knew what Boyd's last name was.

They were all brought together under the plague of suffering, she realizes. And that makes her weight a bit easier to bare.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

A few days later, Stiles finds herself in some of her new clothes down at the mechanic's. When she goes into the car repair part of the store, she is gifted with the sight of a young man, maybe Derek's age, turn around to possibly tell her off, and ending up staring at her.

"How much should this end up costing?" she asks as she points out her jeep that he's currently working on. He clears his throat and pulls himself back together.

"Well, it's going to be more than I originally thought. You're going to need a whole new engine. But I think for you, I can lower the cost a bit." He winks at her, and she turns bright red and fake-giggles. Lydia was right, not that she was ever wrong, but damn.

"I'll leave it to you then," she says as she tries to saunter away, but she ends up looking like a drugged up patient instead. When she finally makes it to the door, she lets out a relieved sigh and turns the handle, which she immediately lets go of.

"Gross," she whispers to herself as she wipes her hand on a conveniently placed towel resting on a rack. She cleans the rest of the weird goop off of the handle with it and throws the towel into the garbage.

Stiles sits in one of the seats, contemplating whether or not to text Lydia about her success with the mechanic, when a weird feeling washes over her. For the most part, she ignores it, and pulls out her phone to text Lydia, when the weird feeling intensifies in her hands. Stiles looks worriedly down at her hands because for some reason they can't _move_.

As soon as she stands up, she falls to the ground. Stiles can feels her motor functions go out little by little. She's about to call out to the mechanic, when she sees a shadow drop from the ceiling and onto her jeep. The shadowed figure lashes what seems to be a tail out and catches the mechanic on the neck.

"Hey," he calls out, but doesn't move from his position from the floor. Or can't move from his position on the floor. The tail whips out again and cuts through a pipe, and suddenly her jeep is slowly lowering. Slowly falling, with the mechanic underneath it.

Stiles wills her body to move as the man screams for help. The most she can get is to the buttons on her phone. She dials in 9-1-, but before she can get the last 1 in, a giant lizard jumps down in front of the glass door she is behind. A scream lodges in her throat as the lizard watches her with familiar eyes.

'Jackson,' her mind supplies, and her eyes widen.

"Jackson?" she calls out to him. His head tilts to the side and his tail wags a bit. "Oh God," she gasps out. Jackson gives her another long look before climbing back up to the roof and jumping out a high window.

Her eyes go back to the mechanic, who's still begging for someone to help him. She can't move anymore though, and she's forced to watch as her own jeep crushes him to death.

When Stiles can finally move her hand again, she types the last 1 in and hits send, but she doesn't remove her eyes from the mechanics unmoving, bloody form.

"Beacon Hills Police, what is your emergency?" a familiar voice asks her.

"Daddy?" she croaks out, tears forming in her eyes.

"Stiles?" her father asks her, alarm clear in his voice. She hasn't called him daddy in so long.

"Daddy, I'm at the mechanic's. He's dead. I watched him die. I watched him die." That's all she can focus on. She had watched that poor man get crushed to death and couldn't do anything. The phrase became her mantra, and it just kept repeating.

Her phone is taken from her hand, and she looks up to see her dad tucking it away in his pocket before scooping her off of the floor and carrying her out to the awaiting ambulance. She doesn't realize she had been crying and repeating the same thing over the phone until her dad had arrived until he told her. Stiles' dad placed the shock blanket around her shoulders after he set her on the end of one of the ambulances, and sent out orders for the ambulance workers to get to the body and see if he was still alive.

"We're going to have to take in your jeep for evidence." Stiles grips her shock blanket closer to her as she nods, giving her permission to do whatever the hell they want with her jeep.

"Make sure they clean it out before they give it back," she tells him, trying to lighten the mood, but her voice is devastated, and her face just won't smile. Her dad lays a hand on her shoulder and squeezes, trying to give her support.

A car suddenly drives up, and Scott and Isaac get out quickly.

"Take her home and make sure she rests," he tells them before turning back to her. "Try to get some sleep tonight, I can get your witness statement tomorrow. We'll find who did this and bring him to justice. You'll be okay."

She just nods in understanding before peeling the shock blanket off and letting Scott and Isaac escort her to Scott's car. Once they were settled in, Scott looks at her, expecting answers.

"One night, I had this dream about a giant lizard and it somehow knocked me out, I think it wasn't in control of its actions. I no longer believe that was a dream." Stiles bit her bottom lip, not knowing if telling them about Jackson would be smart. Isaac and Scott turn back to the front, lost in their thoughts as Scott starts to drive them to her house.

Once inside, they both cuddle up to her and stay awake with her throughout the night. Not a word is spoken about what she saw that night.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

The next morning, Stiles doesn't bother with the new clothing and puts on the one outfit she had managed to save from Lydia's fashion-related wrath. Scott ends up driving her down to the police station while Isaac goes to werewolf training camp. She's already crafted some sort of lie together to write down, and she does so mindlessly when handed the paper. Her father goes to comfort her, but she's not ready to break yet, and she just lets him get back to work. Scott is waiting for her outside of the building.

"You okay?" he asks, concern thick in his voice.

"No," she answers truthfully. "But when we finally come to a resting point in this drama, then I'll show it." Scott looks like he wants to argue with her, but thinks better of it and gets into the driver's seat of his car, ready to drive them to school. Stiles sighs and steels herself for another great fun-filled day of learning. Yeah right.

As they're getting closer to school, Scott suddenly gets a face like he's had an epiphany.

"Hey," he says as he turns towards her, before realizing he's still driving a car a turning back to the road.

"What," she dares to ask as Scott straitens the car again.

"Well, we have a game tonight." Stiles doesn't understand why that revelation nearly got them into a car accident. "That means you're going to be there cheering right? Your first game!"

Well, right now she'd rather be home than school, and Scott wants her to be cheering at his game?

"I don't know Scott," she says uncertainly. She didn't even know if she could handle school today, much less do cheerleading. Seeing someone getting crushed by your Jeep kind of does that to a person.

"I think it'll help take your mind off of, you know…" she was really good at ignoring problems until they went away, so maybe she should.

"We'll see," she tells Scott as they pull into the school parking lot.

"Could you do me and Allison a favor?"

"What now?" she asks, and all she gets in return is Scott's puppy eyes. "Fine," she groans.

Stiles regrets it later when she gets odd looks from everyone outside as she declares Scott's verbal love note to Allison, then memorizes Allison's reply back to Scott.

In the middle of the romantic crap she supposed to spew at Scott, she gives up and plants herself on the staircase.

"I can't do this anymore," she says as her embarrassed, reddened cheeks start to fade a bit. Scott sits next to her and places a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"Aw, Stiles. You're the only one we can trust to do this."

"Scott, I'm about to drown in my vomit with how absolutely mushy some of this 'romance' is. Anyways, have you heard anything from Deaton lately?" Scott's face lights up again. Another epiphany.

"Yeah, some hunters and Chris came in and they mentioned something about a book of monsters."

"A bestiary?" she asks, and Scott sends her a confused look, the immediately plastering on a lewd grin.

"I think you mean 'bestiality'." Stiles sends him her best disgusted look before saying, "No, I think I meant bestiary. It's a book on monsters, as you like to put it." A look of enlightenment crosses his face, then resolve. Oh no, what had she done?

"Gerard probably has it," he tells her.

"How do we get it from Gerard then?"

"I guess we'll have to ask Allison." A sigh escapes her lips at that.

"No, I think that means that I have to ask Allison. Great. At least it's not your love notes." Scott looks slightly offended.

"I think they're great."

"I'm sure Allison agrees with you, but I don't." He sends her this kicked puppy look she had been falling for lately, but she ignored it to the best of her abilities and got up to find Allison.

When she finds Allison, Stiles is about ready to fall over from exhaustion.

"He would probably keep a book like that in his office," Allison tells her helpfully.

"Thanks," she breathes out. "You guys need a new form of communication, because this one is about to fall over dead."

"My parents check over every form of communication that's ever been invented that I use. There is no way that they wouldn't catch me trying to contact Scott."

Well, that's just wonderful. And the rest of the school day passes in a haze of running herself ragged trying to form a plan between the three of them. Soon, Allison drives her over to Lydia's house so they can get ready together.

They all leave the house with ponytails, maroon red and white cheerleading uniforms, and matching tennis shoes. Stiles ends up pulling at her skirt the entire trip back to the school, nerves wracking as she goes over the plan a few times in her head.

They all climb out of the car as soon as it parks, and head towards the field to watch the boys warm up, and to start warming up themselves. All too soon, the game starts. The other team has some sort of giant on the field, so they were getting their asses kicked.

Lydia decides they can take a break when another time out is called, and Allison makes her way up to her family. Stiles can see from her slightly hidden view that Allison is a pretty good actor as she fakes being cold to get to her grandfather's jacket. Stiles removes herself from her spot and walks past Allison's spot in the bleachers, grabbing the keys that are offered to her. She calmly walks away from the field, but breaks into a run when she hits the parking lot.

The door to the school is unlocked, and really, that is kind of worrying. It's like people haven't been dying in this town and frequently breaking into the school, or something. She ignores this and makes her way to the principal's office anyways. Stiles quickly unlocks the door and starts carefully riffling through everything, trying to find something that looks like some sort of old leather-bound book. Nothing even comes close.

Stiles is so busy snooping that she doesn't notice Erica standing in the doorway until she clears her throat. She jumps, feeling like a caught thief, and only relaxes when she turns around to see Erica leaning in the open doorway, giving her a curious look.

"I know I should ask," Erica begins, "but I don't have the time for it. Come on." And Erica just starts walking away. Stiles feels it's in her best interest to follow, and starts after the blonde werewolf.

Erica leads her to the pools their small town high school gets to have, and there is Derek, being a menacing creeper just like he always is.

"So Stiles," he starts, "what attacked you last night?" Stiles blinks before going to tug on her ponytail for comfort. Derek sees her hesitation, and takes a step forward. "I really thought we could get some information out of you without threats this time, don't you think?"

"I think that was somewhat of a threat," and Derek growls, so she hastily adds on a, "but sure, what do you want to know?"

"What is the creature you saw that killed the mechanic?" Stiles doesn't outright say Jackson's name, because she doesn't know what Derek will do when he finds out. He might kill Jackson, and she likes Jackson just enough that if he died at Derek's hands, she would be pretty distraught over it. So, she decides to just describe it instead.

"It was basically a giant lizard. I'm sure it has paralyzing liquid on its claws and other sharp bits on its tail. It's green, has reptilian eyes, and is the size of Derek, except leaner." She stops rambling when she realizes her audience isn't even paying attention to her anymore. A sudden shiver goes down her spine, and a feeling of dread wells up in her stomach. "It's right behind me, isn't it?" She turns around and, yep, there's Jackson. In lizard form.

Jackson drops from his perch and immediately takes down Erica. Derek leaps in front of her, claws and fangs out. She stands there stupidly for a moment, and Derek pushes her away and yells, "Run!"

So, basically, it's a repeat of Peter. Except this time, she's not going anywhere.

"No!" she yells back, which stuns Derek long enough for Jackson to get a good slice across the back of his neck. A mantra of 'Oh shit' repeats in her head as Derek start to stumble around, paralyzing agent already kicking in. She shoots under Derek as he falls, and attempts to drag him away from lizard-Jackson.

Jackson only watches them for a few moments, then decides he wants to play a little more and comes after them slowly. A ridiculously stupid plan forms in her head, and she rushes to bring it to life. Stiles quickly drags herself and Derek over to the edge of the pool.

"Sorry Derek," she says, and she gets a half second to enjoy the confusion on his face before she bodily throws him into the pool. In doing such, her phone drops out of the little pocket that her skirt has. Stiles hesitates between jumping into the water herself or getting her phone then jumping into the water, when Jackson lunges at her, making her fall back into the pool. She swims down to the bottom to pick Derek up, then rises to the surface of the water, both of them coughing and sputtering.

"Stiles," Derek grinds out as she attempts to adjust her grip on him. It's certainly a weird time to realize she was in a pool, with a death grip on Derek, only wearing a cheerleading outfit. Her face turns a deep red, and she almost decides to let Derek drown and deal with Jackson herself. "What was that all about?"

"I figured we'd be safe here," she tries to explain.

"I'm paralyzed, and you thought it would be a good idea to bring me into a pool that is eight feet deep?!"

"Yep," she says as she tries to swim, hold Derek up, and take off her shoes at the same time so she can swim easier. Stiles briefly looks at Jackson as he watches them. He sticks his hand into the pool, as if testing it, before immediately pulling his hand away and backing up like the water would come alive and eat him.

It's weird, she realizes, because she knows that Jackson is on the swimming team, so he should have no trouble jumping in and coming over to murder them. But if Matt truly was in control over Jackson, then maybe Jackson was affected by Matt's weaknesses. She is briefly exhilarated that Matt can't swim worth shit, before realizing that won't help her get out of here sooner. Jackson just walks around the edge of the pool, not leaving his post, and Stiles can feel Derek get heavier by the second.

By the time two hours rolls around, Stiles is convinced she will never have to work out ever again with all the exercise she's been doing today. And Derek continually gets heavier, and she doesn't know how much longer she can hold him up. She doesn't know why Scott hasn't bothered to come check on her yet, because she's very aware that the game should have ended by now. It's official, she's going to get her phone.

"Derek, I'm going to get my phone," she tells him. He attempts to turn his head to face her, but ends up growling instead.

"How about no," he tells her right back. She adjusts his weight again and feels her arms scream in pain.

"Look, you're just going to have to trust me-,"

"I don't trust you," he cuts in, and Stiles pretends that doesn't hurt her as much as it actually does. "Listen," he tries to backtrack, "when this paralysis wears off, who's going to fight that monster? You or me?"

If there was any time to rub her uselessness in her face, this would not be the time. "Is that why I've been holding you up for the past two hours?" she grinds out.

"You need me right now, which is why you're not letting me go." Well screw you too, Derek. He has enough time to yell out "Stiles!" before she shoves him off of her and she heads over to her phone. Jackson watches her, and slowly walks over to meet her at the edge of the pool. Stiles knows she doesn't have that much time before Derek possibly drowns, but he's a werewolf, right? Maybe they have super lungs too; at least she hopes they do, because as much as Derek makes her want to kill him, she doesn't want to be the one to kill him.

When she reaches the edge, Jackson goes to strike out against her. She wills him to stop, and surprisingly enough, he does. Like a switch has gone off in his head, he backs away slowly and just continues to watch her as she goes on with her plan. Stiles doesn't care that she's probably damaging her phone as she tries to swim and calling Scott at the same time.

It rings once, twice, and then she hears Scott's breathing on the end. She doesn't allow him to get a greeting in as she yells, "Scott!"

But apparently he's so busy that he can't even hear her out that she and Derek are drowning and says, "I can't talk right now," and hangs up. Oh, she sees how it is. Next time Scott calls her in the middle of the night, she'll just ignore him too.

This is something she can't dwell on now because Derek is still drowning, and she has nowhere to put her phone down. She ends up just dropping her phone in the pool and driving down to bring Derek back up to the surface. They're both breathing harshly when they resurface, until Derek asks the question she doesn't want to hear right now.

"Did you get him?" Stiles hope her silence is a good enough answer for now.

She keeps swimming, and holding up Derek for a good 30 minutes longer when she can't take it anymore.

"I can't do this anymore," she breathes out. Oxygen is not getting into her lungs anymore, and both her arms and legs have passed the point of numbness. "I need something to hold onto." She does her best to move around the pool towards the diver's starting block and drag Derek along, but it saps out whatever remaining energy she has left.

Stiles manages to get her fingers barely curled around a part of it before they slip off, send both her and Derek under the water. She's done. She gives up. Stiles has no energy left to swim or hold up anyone, especially herself.

Then she's flying through the air and landing hard on her back, but she doesn't care because she can _breathe_ again. And Derek's there too. She looks up to see Scott standing in front of both of them, putting himself as a wall between them and Jackson.

Then Jackson takes that challenge and tackles Scott. They're both up pretty quickly, but Jackson uses his tail to throw Scott across the room and land on a mirror, breaking it. Jackson walks calmly over to Scott, who decides to utilize one of the bigger broken shards. That's when Jackson stops, his eyes trained on the broken mirror. He suddenly jumps up over Scott and climbs up the walls and out of the swimming area, leaving the rest of them stunned.

By now, Stiles has somehow managed to lift herself up from the ground, and Derek's paralysis had gone away enough for him to pull himself up. Way to make yourself useful after the fact, Derek. Anyways, they're all breathing heavily and looking over at each other, not knowing how to proceed.

Eventually, Derek leaves after glowering at both her and Scott and telling them about how Jackson is a Kanima. She gets an apology from Scott, and he explained how he went over to the Argents for dinner, only to find that the book was really on a flash drive on the key ring she used to get into the principal's office. Of course.

When they get out Scott's computer and plug in the flash drive, they find a book written in a language that neither of them can understand. They save it to Scott's computer and plan to give the key ring with the flash drive on it back to Allison in the morning.

The trip to her house starts off silent. Stiles was still exhausted and wanted to do nothing more than sleep, and Scott was busy with his thoughts and focusing on driving. Neither of them notices the car behind them is a little too close until it rams into them, sending their car into a tree. There's so much pain and blood for Stiles, and she vaguely hears Scott screaming in desperation, before it all goes black.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

It might sound cliché, but she feels like she floating. Surrounded by darkness, all she can do is float. Stiles knows she needs to wake up, that she needs to protect her friends as best as she can, but the darkness pulls her down whenever she tries to get out. Sometimes it's suffocating, and she feels an emptiness in herself. Those are also the times when she hears the screams of her loved ones, and she pulls through the choking emptiness and just keeps floating.

Today though, today feels different somehow. She's built up more confidence to break out, it seems. Stiles is going to wake up _now_.

The pain hits her first, and she wants so desperately to crawl back into the numb darkness, but she pushes through, ignoring her protesting body. Her hearing comes through next. The beeps of the machines and the breathing apparatus on her face are sounds she will never forget, never misplace. The heart machine beats faster as she tries to open her eyes and see the familiar white of the hospital ceiling.

It's dark, which means its night time. She relaxes a bit, knowing that no one will hound her for answers just yet. Then the door opens and a dark figure walks in and sits at her bedside.

"Well, well, look who decided to wake up." Even though her brain is still a bit clouded, she can recognize the threatening tone in his voice. _Matt's_ voice. "Before, you try to alert anyone to my presence, let me tell you that I'm not here to murder you. As Jackson's Beta Master, it would be unwise to kill you, because you could come in handy."

That made about zero sense to her drugged up brain, but she kept quiet.

"Now," he continued, "I think you're going to conveniently forget that Jackson is the Kanima and that I'm his Alpha Master, or my next target will be your _precious_ dad." Her heart stops, because that was enough to lift the fog covering her regular thinking skills. Matt pats her head briefly.

"Good girl. Next time I want to converse with you, I'll try not to hit you with a car. Glad we could come to an agreement." He leaves, just like that, and her mind goes into a frenzy. The heart monitor goes wild and nurses slam her door open and are swarming her bed. Another panic attack, she realizes, as they inject something into her IV and she goes to sleep once more.

When she wakes up again, it's daytime and she's surrounded by nurses. They tell her she was in a car accident and she got out with only cuts and bruises, but her head hit the dash hard enough to send her into a coma-state. She's been asleep for a few weeks now.

They leave her alone after that, letting her father come in and visit her. He's almost sobbing on her, because he was the one who answered Scott's 9-1-1 call that night about how they had been in a car accident and the other guy drove away. She had apparently taken the brunt of the hit against the tree, but came out relatively unscathed. She thinks Scott had something to do with that, and speak of the devil and he appears, right?

Scott comes in then and is immediately holding onto the hand her father isn't holding. Her father stays there for a few moments, before telling the both of them he has to get back to work. Silence pours over the both of them, before Scott awkwardly clears his throat.

"Isaac is out there. He was really crushed when they told him you were in a coma, and he's visited every day. Erica and Boyd visit sometimes, bringing in flowers and just watching over you. And even though Derek won't ever admit it, he visits too. Probably comes at night and watches over you. Jackson went into a really weird funk when he found out. Like he's depressed or something. He's visited, but not too much, and brought Danny along. Lydia and Allison pop by whenever they can." A pause, a breath. "I'm _so_ _sorry_ about this." She notes how he doesn't talk of her father or himself, as if it was too painful to mention how her closest family reacted to her being in this state.

She shakes her head and forces out words, even though it hurts to speak. "I can tell you tried, because I would probably be dead if you didn't shield me from most of it." Scott shakes his own head and lifts her hand up to cover his face, holding her hand with gentle force. She feels tears start to run down her arm and she squeezes his hands.

"I'm alive, Scott. Focus on that. I'm alive because of _you_." A strangled sob works its way out of his throat as he tries to stop crying over her. "Thank you, Scott." He finally nods his head against her hand, and gently lowers it back onto the bed.

"The others are waiting outside because they told us you woke up last night. Prepare yourself to be mother-henned to death." She lets out a small laugh at that as Scott leaves for a moment. Seconds later, Isaac is at her bedside, holding the hand that Scott hadn't cried all over, and trying to talk and whimper at the same time.

"Ssshhh," she whispers to Isaac as she brings her other hand over to tangle in his locks, petting his head. He calms down a bit and presses her hand to his cheek. The others swarm in soon after, and she sees Boyd go over to the window and open it. She guesses Derek will come in soon, and doesn't want to be seen walking into the Sherriff's daughter's hospital room. The only person missing was Jackson, but Matt was probably using him for a nefarious scheme, so she let it go.

They all solemnly surround her bed, tears of joy streaming down their cheeks, or guilty faces shown.

"So, who wants to tell me what I've missed so far?" Stiles says to break the ice. A few show relieved grins.

"We told Lydia and Danny about werewolves," Scott says, which knocks Stiles through a loop because she thought they weren't ever supposed to find out. But, since Jackson was a Kanima, it was probably fair to tell the two closest to him that he could potentially rip their throats out. Seemed fair. But did the others know that Jackson was the Kanima? "After I got checked out of the hospital, Gerard told me he knew I was a werewolf by stabbing me in the parking lot." Her jaw drops, because what sane person even does that?

"And the Kanima," Isaac says nervously, "its Jackson. The Kanima is Jackson." So they do know. Well, she hopes Matt believes they figured that out on their own, instead of just killing her father right off the bat. "And he's still been killing people. His 'Master' came and killed someone in the hospital a short while ago, and we tried to have someone with you at all times."

"He kind of tried to kill me in a gay club," Danny adds, completely nonchalant. Well, seeing as how she talks about how Scott has almost killed her a few times the same way, she can't judge.

"Jackson put out a restraining order against me," Scott says sheepishly, and if Stiles had the ability to get up and strangle him, she would have.

"I'm not even going to ask." She says with a straight face. She then turns back to Isaac. "Now what's this about Kanima Masters?" Lydia perks up at that and smoothed out her skirt a bit.

"In the bestiary, it says that the Kanima seeks a Master, so Jackson is being controlled by someone. The book also mentioned something about different leveled Masters, but it was skipped over or lost in time." She nods, having a better understanding of whatever Matt told her last night. "But if we can find him, maybe we can get him to the police or the Argents."

"How is that going?" Stiles asks, wanting to know how close they were to the truth.

"To be honest, not very good," Allison tells her as everyone nods in agreement. "But since we have our magical puzzle-fixer back we should get somewhere." Her heart drops in her chest, and she doesn't know how to respond to that. Does she tell them she knows its Matt, or does she keep her dad alive? Could they keep her father safe? She can't lose her father, she won't.

But there are so many other lives on the line here.

Stiles doesn't know she's crying until the others try to sooth her, clearly confused on why she would choose now to cry. She's about to tell them she's fine, when Derek figures it would be a good time to swing into the room through the window.

It's pretty awkward for a moment, before he glares at everyone, and they all back up as one, except for Scott and Isaac who are still clinging to her sides.

"Scott and Isaac tell me you had a dream about Jackson being the Kanima, before any of us knew about the problem to begin with." Stiles mouth is suddenly dry, because there is no way for her to lie to a werewolf like Derek Hale. She desperately didn't want to put her father's life on the line, but so many others were already dead by Jackson's hand. If she didn't stop it from happening now, then when would it end?

"He threatened to kill my father," she whimpers, and everyone recoils in shock. "At first I thought it was a dream, then I saw Jackson kill that mechanic in front of me, and I didn't know how anyone would react to that. I didn't know how to react to that. I was so sure you would be so dead set on killing Jackson, and I just couldn't let that happen. Then, when I went to go get my phone while you drowned in the pool, it was going to attack me, but I told it to stop and he did. I was going to tell Scott that night, but then we got hit by that car, by _him_." Scott's eyes go feral yellow.

"You know who it is, and he's threatened you. He tried to kill you in that car wreck!" She winces at Scott's harsh tone, but doesn't dispute it. "Who?!"

"It's Matt," she forces out, and she feels the noose that wraps around her father's throat. Scott looks about ready to jump out the window and kill the guy, hell everyone does, but she doesn't want Matt to find out they know about him until they know how to deal with Jackson being the Kanima first.

Stiles steels herself before commanding, "Calm down." Every werewolf that isn't Derek stills, and Derek whips around and growls in her face. She keeps her eyes steady with his, not letting her being in the hospital keep her from standing up to Derek for the second time in her life.

"Matt came in here last night," another round of growls goes around the room, and the humans look tense. "He told me I was Beta Master, so he wasn't going to kill me because I could be useful to him. He told me he was Alpha Master. I think it has something to do with the order of which we touched Jackson's hands that night."

"Tell me what happened," Derek orders her. Stiles complies, recounting the story of how Matt was just waiting outside of Jackson's house that full moon, and she had wanted to check up on Jackson. Then how they both sat terrified in Matt's car as Jackson turned in to the Kanima and crawled on top of the car and slid his hands down. She told them how she met the Kanima's claws a bit later than Matt had, thus establishing her position as Beta instead of Alpha.

Her audience listened with rapt attention as she described how Jackson had licked her hand when she attempted to communicate with him. Then, when she was about to call Derek about the situation, Matt had taken her phone from her and used Jackson to knock her out. She had woken up the next morning just fine and thought it all a dream.

"Wait!" Allison interrupted. Everyone turned to her and she stood up to address them. "Matt asked me to go to a raid with him tonight. Do you think he's going to make Jackson kill anyone there?"

"It's possible," Derek tells her, and everyone is shocked, because this is probably the first time Derek had ever spoken directly to Allison, besides that one time at that party in the beginning of the year. "You should go with him, and make sure you don't give him any hint of what we've discussed in this room." Allison nods her head in agreement before retaking her seat.

"The nurse says I can go home today."

"No Stiles," everyone says at once, and what the hell?

"What?" she asks.

"You are not allowed to help with this," Isaac clarifies for her. She narrows her eyes.

"Excuse me," she says, annoyance clear in her voice. "But I think I just sold out my dad's life to you all, so if I have to risk my own to take Matt down, then just you _try_ and stop me." She's pushing herself off of the bed and forcing herself to stand on her own. Isaac tries to help her stand, but she pushes his hands away, taking a few wobbly steps around before getting the hang of walking again.

"Stiles-," Scott starts, and she sends him a dark look, before trying to send him an easy smile.

"Look, I get you're looking out for me and everything, but I need to be able to protect my dad. I need to do this on my own. You understand, right?" She's sure she addresses everyone with that question, and she heads back to the bed and sits on its side.

A sigh works its way out of Scott's mouth. "I guess I can ask Dr. Deaton if there's anything he can give you to protect yourself. Just don't overdo it." She elated for one quick second, before she squishes the feeling down and gets serious.

"So what do we know about the connection to the victims and Matt?" And that's what they discus until a nurse comes in to look her over before checking her out.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

A quick stop over to the good witch doctor gives them a sack of magical sand. She feels _so_ important now. Can you hear the sarcasm?

Essentially, she has to spread the Mountain Ash around the entire building and hoping that it works. Meanwhile, everyone else will be stationed inside, making sure no one dies. All except for Derek and Boyd who have guard duty outside.

So, the approximate time the night goes to shit is when the hunters show up.

Stiles is going about her business, spreading the magical dust around the building, slowly but surely, and shots ring out. There are distinct growls in the background of the gunfire and loud music, so she knows they aren't dead yet. And how is it that no one notices a young woman spreading something around a building and gunfire going off? She weeps for humanity.

Then she almost runs out of her special dust when she has about 50 feet to go, which she has been told would not be good. So she tries her best to believe in the Mountain Ash.

Stiles closes her eyes and believes. She believes as hard as she can. Everyone around her is magical, is special in some way. And what is she? Some annoying, useless human who likes to get in the way? Not anymore, not ever again.

Before Stiles understands what's happening, she's finishing the circle and lets out a whoop of joy.

Then the night proceeds to get worse from there.

Stiles goes to check on everyone's progress inside. She meets up with Erica and Isaac inside a secluded room where Jackson is propped up in a chair. Isaac goes to approach him, and Jackson's arm whips out and twists it painfully, almost breaking the offending limb. Isaac breaks free of Jackson's grip and Stiles pulls him back and pushes both him and Erica behind her. She apparently has some sort of control over him, so she should be the one in the forefront of this mess.

"Neither of you is allowed to something like that ever again," she tells them.

"I thought that stuff was supposed to put him out!" Isaac yells as his arms tries to heal.

"Yeah, well, we're going to have to deal with this for now," she tells him. "So let's just hope that maybe Jackson wanted to come to this rave on his own accord, instead of Matt's."

"Nope," a demonic voice says. They all freeze, turning back towards Jackson with caution. "Now Stiles, I thought you liked having a living father." Everything stops, her heart, her blood, time itself pauses as those words sink into her brain. She lifts off of the wall she was leaning against and slowly makes her way towards Jackson.

"Matt, is that you?" she asks.

"Who else?" he says smugly through Jackson.

"Why are you doing this? What compels you to murder these people?" This is something she genuinely wants to know, because she wants to understand what exactly she been dragged into since that first full moon.

"I kill them because they killed me!" Matt roars, and Jackson slowly starts to shift into the Kanima, screaming, "They murdered me!" over and over again in a voice that's not his own.

"Isaac," she yells over Jackson, "we need to give him more of that drug." Isaac freezes before slowly bringing out an empty bottle.

"There's none left," he says hesitantly.

"You used all of it?" she asks desperately, because that's _really_ bad. Erica touches her shoulder, and she looks over and sees Jackson slowly standing up. A screech leaves his lips, and Stiles feebly yells, "Sit!"

Jackson actually hesitates. They all just stand there for a moment, but Jackson doesn't sit, he just blinks at them. Something flickers in his eyes, and she feels like her command has been overridden by Matt the Alpha Master, which is all the warning she needs to get the hell out of that room.

"Run!" she tells them, and soon they're outside of the room and pushing against the door, trying to prevent Jackson's inevitable escape. That proves to be useless when Jackson just bursts through the thin metal wall.

Well, she's done for the night.

Stiles makes her way outside and crosses over her magical barrier and meets up with Derek.

"So, we managed to lose Jackson inside," Derek looks pretty mad about that, but Isaac and Erica come out to join them, and stop just short of her barrier.

"It's working!" she cheers, happy that something is actually going as it should for the first time since this entire adventure started. Scott and Allison come outside, holding hands, and are soon joined by Lydia and Danny, faces grim.

"Someone died," they tell them, and the mood drops instantly.

"Stiles, break the line," Derek tells her.

"What? Why? If we break it-,"

"I know, but we have to get out of here before the police show up, and you don't want to leave them behind, do you?" he asks, gesturing to Isaac, Erica, and Scott. She bends down and scoops a handful away, and everyone crosses the line and heads back to their cars. Stiles pauses, sudden dread washing over her.

"Dad!" she yells out, instantly remembering that Matt knows she skipped out on her part of the deal. Stiles rushes over to her jeep, jumps in, and takes off, not caring if anyone followed her or not.

Speed limits were defiantly broken, but she got to the station at a more comfortable speed than she would have if she had conformed to them. She rushes in, ignoring the secretaries questions, and barges into her father's office. He sat up at her intrusion, looking confused as to why she was here rather than resting at home.

She feels something in her break at the sight of him being okay, and she flings herself over his desk to hug him.

"Stiles, what's wrong?" Stiles can't form any words, though. She's sick of the suspicion, the lies, the aggravation she has caused her father. The truth, she has to tell him the truth.

"Hold on for a moment," she tells him, and she walks outside to see who followed her here. To her surprise, everyone had. She quickly finds Derek in the sea of her friends' faces and gives him a look. "I'm going to tell him," she says shortly. "And I would very much appreciate it if you would help me convince him."

Derek looks ready to argue, but holds his tongue and walks up the steps, everyone following his steps. When they walk back into her father's office, he stands up immediately, glare fixed on one Derek Hale.

"Why are you here, with my daughter and her group of _teenage_ friends?" They all flinch a bit at this, but Stiles goes over to her father's side and lays a hand on his shoulder.

"You might want to sit down dad. You're about to find out what's been going on in Beacon Hills for the past few months." Her father looks suspicious, but sits down anyways.

"Let's start from the beginning, when Scott and I went out to look for the dead body of Laura Hale."

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

By the time they finish, her dad is about ready to drown himself in alcohol.

"I'll ask you more questions later. All of you. Now, go home for the night while I put out an arrest warrant for Matt." Stiles gives a grateful nod to her father before ushering everyone out. She stops at the door and looks back. "Be careful, Dad."

"I have my gun safety off, I'll be fine." Another nod meets his statement before she resumes getting everyone out of the police station.

She thanks all of them before heading home with Isaac. Sleep does not come easily that night, even with Isaac curled up against her.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

The next day she's attending another girl's day, minus Erica because it was her first full moon, at Allison's house. Actually, Lydia had stopped by Stiles' house first to drag out a dress for her, then demanded she drive them over to Allison's house. Same thing, honestly.

Stiles was more willing to go today because her father was still a bit on edge about learning the truth, and after a long talk when they had both woken up, she wanted to be anywhere but home right now.

So now she was talking about Lydia's party that she was having tonight while watching Lydia pick through Allison's closet. Allison's mother comes in after a while and pulls Stiles outside to have 'a quick chat'.

Who was she kidding, they were probably going to throw her into their basement and kill her or something to that degree of violence.

They both stop a short distance down the hall, where they can still faintly hear Lydia and Allison comparing dresses, but are far enough away that Mrs. Argent could kick Stiles ass without anyone hearing.

"I'm guessing you don't want to talk about the dress Lydia picked out for me for her party," she guesses sarcastically. Victoria rolls her eyes and gives her the most straight-faced look ever.

"Chris and I were thinking that you could use some training." Cue record screech, because what in the hell? Did the Argents just offer to train her hunter style?

"What?" she asks, unable to grasp why they would even consider giving her training in the first place.

"Obviously, you're not going leave this werewolf business alone. And since you are part of a _pack_," she sneers when she says this, like it leaves a bad taste on her tongue, "you need to know how to fight. There will be a moment, or a few, when another pack will threaten yours, or other hunters who don't know where the line is will threaten you, because you are the weak link. The human. If you accept this training, then you'll be able to give those people a very nasty surprise." Stiles considers this, because that is a very valid point. Even though it's only her, Scott and Allison, they won't always be able to save her. She would be naive to think that just because she was the researcher that no one would approach her. Or that just because she was human, then a hunter wouldn't hurt her.

"Why would you bother to help me?" she asks suspiciously, because the Argents couldn't do something like this out of the very goodness of their hearts.

"Because we do follow The Code. And since your pack has been more help than hurt, and we've only been trying to hunt you down, we figure this would be a nice apology gift. The ability to keep yourself alive and out of danger. Hell, you could probably save your werewolf pack on occasion if the proper chance came. Now, what do you say?" Victoria's face remains calm and impassive throughout her explanation, showing no sign of deceit.

Now, to her, it would be pretty damn stupid to say no to such an offer. With the way her life is going, she's going to need this training yesterday, or a few months ago when school started to be honest.

"Yes," she says with confidence. Stiles has heard you need confidence to be a badass hunter, not that she's going to be a hunter, just trained to be one.

Holy shit, Derek is going to kick her ass. Or tear her throat out. Or just throw her against a wall and growl in her face. Probably all three. She had just accepted to be trained by _hunters_ after all. That have tried to kill him. And he can't even _trust_ her. That's a big gut puncher.

After everything that's gone down so far, every time she's saved his life, every hour that she's stayed up to research to the point of passing out, and he says he _can't_ _trust_ _her_?

Well, she doesn't need his trust. She doesn't need Derek, and defiantly won't need him when she gets this hunter training from the Argents. It's not like she's in his pack anyways, so she doesn't need his damn approval.

"Good," Victoria says as she spins on her heel. Before she walks away, she adds, "I've heard you're good with guns, so we'll start on that this weekend. Be here at 9am sharp." Stiles doesn't know where Allison's mom heard that, and it kind of creeps her out that she does know about it. Maybe it was obvious that because she's the Sherriff's daughter that of course she knows how to shoot a gun properly. But that didn't sound like an educated guess to her, more like an 'I asked a bunch of people who would know these things, which means I inadvertently stalked you to find this out' sort of way.

Stiles halts that thinking process right there and heads back towards Allison's room. When asked about what her mother wanted, Stiles tells Allison that it was nothing important. Besides, she would probably find out about it sooner or later, depending on how busy Scott keeps her.

Lydia returns Stiles to her house soon after, and makes her promise to show up on time wearing the dress she had picked out before driving off. Stiles sighs as she watches her friend drive away, and makes her own way back into her house.

Of course her dad is there. But he's not waiting for her, mostly because they already had "The Big Talk" this morning. He was just flipping through papers and what seemed to be yearbooks, looking for something.

"What are you doing?" she asks as she sits down beside her father, watching him shift through the endless amounts of paper.

"I'm looking for the connection that Matt would have to the murder victims. Why would he want all of those people dead?" Stiles thinks back to the rave they had gone to last night, Matt screaming at her that those people had murdered _him_.

"He says that they killed him, even though he's, you know, _alive_." A perplexed look crosses her father's face as he looks over an attendance sheet of Mr. Harris' class of old for the third time, words and pictures remain the same as the last time he looked at them. Stiles picks up a yearbook herself and starts to flip through it, looking for anything that could give her a clue about the victims.

It's a great relief when Isaac comes home and finds the missing clue for them, sort of.

"Hey, what are you looking at?" Isaac asks as he sets his lacrosse equipment off to the side of the kitchen.

"I was just leafing through these old yearbooks that have some of the victims in them. I'm trying to find the connection between them and Matt," she says without removing her head from inside the yearbook itself.

"Can I, uh, look at something really quick?" Isaac asks, unsure of whether it would presumptuous to ask or not.

"Knock yourself out," she says as she closes the yearbook with a frustrated sigh and hands it to the werewolf beside her. She watches as he flips to the back of the book where the clubs are usually covered with a wistful look on his face, before it turns to confusion.

"Aren't these some of the dead people?" he asks her as he puts the yearbook down on the table where they can all see, her dad having stopped to see what they were doing. She scrunches her face in concentration before leaping out of her seat in surprise.

"You did it Isaac! You found what we've been looking for! They were all a part of the swimming team." Confusion strikes her as the thought of 'how does this even relate' still out there.

"I know he can't swim, but he shouldn't want to kill people who can to get revenge." That's where it doesn't add up. Why the swimming team? Why is Matt unable to swim? Is there really some sort of connection?

A sudden 'ding' rings through the air, and Stiles jumps out of her skin. She realizes it's her phone and goes to check her messages.

'Time to get ready! It's almost time to party! –Lydia."

Had time really gone by that fast? One glance at the clock tells her 'Yes moron, now start getting ready or face Lydia's wrath'.

"Are you going to Lydia's party?" she asks Isaac before she rushes up stairs and plows through getting ready so she can make it on time. Isaac screws up his face in slight distaste and says, "No, I have to meet up with Derek. It's the full moon tonight, after all."

Stiles nods in remembrance, because sometimes forgets that Isaac is a werewolf and this is his second ever full moon experience, and rushes up the stairs to do a rush job on everything. Soon, she declares herself done, and runs down the stairs and out to her jeep, a gift card to Macy's in her hand for Lydia. It's the best idea she can think of since they always drag her out to Macy's for some obscure reason.

When she shows up, she's immediately aware of the lack of people. Lydia, who seems blissfully unaware, hands her and Scott drinks, before moving over to a newly arrived Allison to offer her some punch.

"I feel kind of bad," she tells him after taking a small sip of the weird-tasting beverage. "If it wasn't for us, she would probably still have her millions of friends, and have them show up to her birthday party." Scott lets out a miniscule sigh before digging out his cellphone.

"I think I know how to fix this," he tells her as he scrolls through his contacts. Minutes later, Lydia's party is jam packed full of people, who mostly seem to be guys, and a few in drag.

"How do you know these people?" Stiles asks incredulously. Scott blushes bright red and turns away from her.

"While you were in a coma, we chased down Jackson to a gay club that Danny was at, which is how he found out about werewolves in the first place." Stiles eyes widen as she gives Scott a 'look'.

"You didn't." Because the idea of Scott entering a gay club is almost too funny to fathom.

"I kind of had to go in and warn Danny, and ended up getting a few numbers on my way. I found a bunch of them shoved into my back pants pocket; I swear I didn't ask for them."

"But you kept them," Stiles tells him, and Scott's face somehow turns an even brighter red.

"I thought I might need them some day, and look, I was right." She decides to let it go at this point, because she just wants Lydia to have her party and be happy for one night without werewolves there to ruin everything.

But everything gets ruined anyways.

Apparently, someone spiked the punch, because she doesn't feel very good, but she also feels like she's floating on air, and a lot of people around her are acting pretty strange, even if they came from the gay bar Scott was talking about. Not that people from gay bars were weird or anything, it's just that they were all acting like complete fools and talking to air. It's almost chaos, but somehow it doesn't get too out of control.

Then she sees her father at the punch table, and she could have sworn that he was supposed to be working right now, not stopping by a teenager's house to get some punch. For some reason, he's yelling at random teenagers that he's just come from a funeral. He also looks to be completely off-his-ass drunk.

"Dad?" she calls out, not aware that she was completely out-of-her-mind hallucinating. He sloppily turns to her, the alcohol clearly affecting his movements.

"_You_," he hisses out, disgust clear on his face. She recoils a bit, not ever having heard her father like this. "_You_ _killed_ _her_," he says to her, and Stiles feels like a bucket of ice water is washing over her. Her very blood freezes in her veins as her heart skips a beat and squeezes in her chest. "_And all while she was dying, I kept asking myself, how am I supposed to raise this hyperactive little shit that continuously ruins my life_?" He takes a deep swig of his beer and points in her general direction, the alcohol making its presence known once more. "_You_ _killed_ _your_ _mother_. _You killed her and now you're killing me_."

Her dad tells her this with such a straight face, she has to believe him, not that she had ever doubted it before. But for the cold truth to actually come out of his mouth, it was chilling; it hurt in a way that no physical pain could match. When her father throws his beer bottle at her, she almost forgets to duck, because she's so deep rooted in her belief that she needs to be punished for her mother's death somehow that the reflex doesn't kick in until the bottle is inches away from her face.

Stiles closes her eyes and waits to feel pain, but it never comes. The broken bottle she expects to find shattered all over the ground and in her skin is nowhere to be found, and neither is her father.

Everything in her stomach goes into a rebellion, and she pukes in the nearest garbage can. When nothing else can come out and she rinses out her mouth in a trip to a bathroom, she heads back outside and sits on the cold ground and leans against a pillar, not knowing what to make of anything anymore.

She doesn't know how long she just sits there, self-pity and sadness rolling off of her in waves, drowning her in the negative energy, but suddenly her head is being dunked in freezing cold water, and she thinks she's drowning. A tug on the back of her shirt pulls her back up for air, and as Stiles takes a deep breath, she realizes that the world around her is a hell of a lot clearer than it was a few seconds ago.

And there is Scott's concerned face right in front of her.

"What happened?" she asks, massaging her aching forehead.

"I don't really understand what's going on, but I think the punch is more than spiked," Scott tells her as he helps her up. He thanks the girl who had dunked her into the pool and leads them to a bench to sit down.

"Where's Allison?" Stiles manages to asks, then takes another look around and asks, "Where's Lydia?" Scott takes his own quick sweep and shakes his head.

"Allison had a curfew tonight, and Lydia just disappeared. I'm not really sure of anything else at this point," he tells her, and she honestly doesn't blame him. A sudden frightened yell echoes through the air, and then two large splashes as someone is pushed in and another goes in after them. They see Matt get dragged up by Jackson, and she and Scott both go still. No one else at the party seems to be concerned about the one uninvited murderer attending.

Matt looks directly at them, still dripping wet like Stiles' hair was, and sends a sneer their way. Scott growls in his direction as Stiles latches onto his arm, trying to get him to calm down so that he doesn't go crazy on a full moon in the middle of a crowded party.

Then the police show up, which is just dandy, as they lose sight of both Matt and Jackson in the ensuing chaos of the many teens trying to get away from the scene. Stiles and Scott both make it outside and look through the many people milling about, trying to get into their cars or just run to wherever. A look in the direction of her own jeep awards her with the sight of a still dripping wet Matt and Kanima Jackson.

She attempts to get Jackson to come back to himself, like she had gotten him to not hurt her or to hesitate like she had done in the past, but it's obvious Matt's control is too strong now. It's almost as if her position of Beta Master doesn't even matter anymore.

They both disappear within a second, gone and hidden within the confines of the crowd and chaos.

Scott and Stiles give each other significant looks before getting into her jeep and driving to the Sherriff's department to catch Stiles' dad up on the current events of Lydia's party and Matt's sighting.

Stiles hesitates before going in, the hallucination still fresh in her mind, but she shoves the pain down, a practice she is a bit too used to, and walks in with Scott at her side. The blood in the air is so potent that even she can smell it. The look on Scott's face tells her that he must be drowning in the metallic scent. Worry for her father floods her mind, and she rushes to his office to see if he's still working.

The office is empty; no blood or Sherriff anywhere. Faintly, she hears Scott tell her he's texting someone, probably his mother or Derek, before she runs out of the office and back towards the cells. There's Matt and her father having a hostile conversation and Matt is holding a gun, pointing the device towards her father. She stops in her tracks, and Matt briefly looks behind him to look at her before keeping his eye and the gun on the Sherriff.

Scott comes in seconds later, wolfed out and threatening growls coming out of his throat. Matt tuts at him and shakes his head in disappointment.

"Now calm down, Scott, you wouldn't want me to accidently shoot the Sherriff now, would you?" Scott freezes and slowly morphs his face back to its original human form. Matt looks pleased with himself when he looks over at her. "Now," he says, "handcuff him to this wall, or I'll shoot him." She goes up to her father slowly, not wanting to provoke Matt in anyway, and slips the handcuffs from her father's pocket and gently slide the cuffs around her father's wrist. "Tighter," Matt demands. She gives him a glare, but he brandishes his gun towards her father, making her comply with his orders fairly quickly.

"There," she says as she steps back again. Matt nods in approval before looking at Scott again.

"Now, I think you'll find it in your best interest that we get rid of all of the evidence before your mother shows up and I have to kill her too." Scott takes a small step back and growls again, but doesn't go through the change. Matt exchanges his target from the Sherriff to Stiles, which gets them both following Matt's orders to go back to the Sherriff's office.

On the way there, they see several bodies of officers Stiles had known since her childhood, all dead and covered in their own blood.

"Ah yes," Matt says as he sees the bodies himself. "All I have to do is think it and Jackson will kill people for me." A shiver shoots down her spine, but she continues to walk, not wanting Matt to see her weak, like she had not wanted Peter to see her weak. They make it to the office in no time after that, and Matt commands her to get onto the computer to get rid of evidence while Scott worked on the evidence on the table and wall. Soon enough, everything was deleted and shredded to the point of no return.

And then, through the window, they see headlights. Someone with a car was here. But could it really be Melissa McCall? If it was, she certainly deserved a speeding ticket, because it should have taken a bit more time than that to get from the hospital over to the Sherriff's Department.

Stiles is relieved when she sees that it's Derek that's come to the Sherriff's Department for some reason, but it's gone the second he collapses, Jackson behind him with his paralyzing claws out. Scott gets the fun duty of dragging Derek around until they find a secluded room Matt wants to dump him in. Scott lays Derek down on his back and moves back to stand next to Stiles again, trying to separate her from Jackson.

"Geez, werewolves, hunters, Kanimas? It's like a freaking Halloween party every full moon," Matt jokes. He turns towards Stiles, gun still out as he gestures it around as he talks. "And what are you supposed to turn into?" he mocks.

"The abominable snowman," she says without missing a beat. "But it's more of a seasonal thing, you know?" Matt's face turns angry, and not for the first time, Stiles wished she would just learn to keep her mouth shut. Matt looks at Jackson, which is all it takes for him to appear behind her and take a swipe at the back of her neck.

The poison doesn't take too long to move through her body, and she slowly goes down, landing on top of Derek. The last place she wanted to be right now. Not that she ever wanted to be on top of Derek, or under him. Or anywhere near him. Nope. Not at all.

And now Matt is leaning over them, getting a closer look at them in this pathetic state. Derek growls, which has his chest vibrating, and she is lying on his chest. It's certainly a weird experience to say the least.

"Look at you," Matt croons at Derek, "reduced to such a sad state for a werewolf. How does it feel to have all of that power just taken away from you?"

"Why don't you lean down a bit more," Derek hisses, "then I could tear your throat out and who would be in the sad state then?"

"You really need a new death threat," she whispers at him, and she gets a growl in response, sending those vibrations through her own body once more. Her face heats up, because this is becoming a bit too sexual for her tastes, thank you. But it's not like she can get off, or move anything that isn't her eyeballs or her mouth. Maybe she can tilt her head too, but that theory is a bit hard to test when it's shoved to one side, lying on Derek's chest.

"Get her off of me," Derek demands. Matt tuts once more and stands up.

"I don't know Derek. You two make a pretty good pair." Stiles chokes simply on air, and she can feel Derek's muscles tense up, even though he can't move them at all. More headlights shine through the window, and Stiles is pretty sure that's Scott's mom.

"Do as I say, and I won't hurt her. Jackson won't even hurt her," Matt tells Scott.

"Don't trust him!" Stiles yells through Derek's shirt. Next thing she knows is that Matt is pulling at the back of her dress and tugging her off of Derek's body and onto the floor, ripping her dress in the process. He places one foot on her chest and presses down, hard. She's choking again, and through her lungs screaming for air she hears Scott demanding for Matt to get off of her. He eventually does, and she takes in the air that was previously denied to her, coughing every once in a while.

Scott and Matt leave the room, leaving Jackson standing watch over them.

"Since Matt is distracted, I think that maybe I can gain control of Jackson now," she tells Derek. He nods in what could have been support, and she gets started.

"Hey Jackson, can you-," she's cut off by the sound of a gun going off and Melissa's screams. Panic hits her like a brick, and her concentration falters, making the Kanima hiss at her. She can also hear her dad screaming for her and Scott where he was still handcuffed to the wall, and her stomach dropped, but she resisted the urge to vomit or cry.

Outside of their room is a screaming match between her dad, Matt, Scott, and Melissa, until Matt orders everyone to shut up, and leads them back to the cells once more. Stiles faintly hears one of the cells open, and then close, figuring that Matt just put Scott's mom in a cell instead of with her dad.

Matt and Scott return to the room again, arguing about being let go.

"We got rid of the evidence already," says Scott.

"You really think the evidence is what I want right now? No, I want the book." Scott looks like he's been thrown through a loop when Matt says that.

"What book?" If Stiles could move her body, she'd be slapping her forehead in exasperation.

"The bestiary!" She and Derek exchange looks at this, because how does Matt even know about that book's existence? "Not just a few pages, the entire thing."

"I don't have it," Scott says simply. "It's Gerard's. What do you want it for anyways?"

"I need answers," Matt says as he looks around the room, sweat pouring off of him now that he knows they don't have the book he needs.

"Answers for what?" Scott asks, practically at the end of the rope. He gestures around with both of his hands and Stiles sees that he's been shot, that Scott was the recipient of Matt's anger. It makes her wince a bit, but she becomes distracted when Matt shows off his own new development.

"For this," Matt says as he lifts up his shirt, showing off green, scaly skin. Scott just stands there, dumbfounded, and she so badly wants to move away, but her body won't let her. Matt gets tired of waiting for a proper response and leads Scott out of the room once more, leaving Jackson, Derek, and Stiles alone.

"Do you know what's going on with Matt?" she whispers to Derek just in case Matt is standing just outside of the door. A bit of worry bubbles up in her that she might start getting scaly skin too, and she hadn't even done anything wrong.

"Yeah," Derek whispers back, no growls or threats anywhere in sight. "The bestiary won't be able to help him. You can't just break the rules, not like this."

"What do you mean?" she asks, wanting to know as much as she can about being a Kanima Master since she technically was one.

"The universe always balances these things out. Always does," Derek helpfully tells her.

"Is it because he's using Jackson to kill people who don't deserve it?"

"He killed people himself."

"So that breaks the rules of the Kanima," she says, enlightened. "He becomes the Kanima." Derek nods.

"Balance," he emphasizes.

"Will he believe us if we tell him that?" she asks hopefully.

"Not likely," is Derek's pessimistic answer.

"Okay, he's going to kill all of us when he gets that book, isn't he?"

"Yep."

"So what do we do? Do we just sit here and wait to die?"

"Unless I can figure out a way to push the toxin out of my body faster by triggering the healing process." Stiles then hears the familiar sound of ripping skin, which shows you how deep in this shit she really is, and looks down to see Derek stabbing himself with his own claws.

"What are you doing?" Her voice is high pitched and squeaky, because she's laying down right next to this guy, who's trying to make himself bleed. "Oh gross."

Derek doesn't comment.

She turns her eyes back towards Jackson, who is curiously watching them, his head tilted to the side. Stiles feels this push to try. Try to get him to follow her again. There's a feeling that Jackson's in there right now, clawing at the Kanima to let him out. Stiles hears Scott keeping Matt busy ranting, and she grabs at that feeling, that bond Matt is talking about right outside, and she latches on tight.

Shit gets crazy. Instantly.

The lights go out and gunfire racks through the windows while sirens blare. She still can't move and it's all she can do to try and not go into full blown panic. The bond with Jackson she just formed is what her mind hangs onto fervently to keep her sane. The green scales start to slowly melt away, leaving regular old Jackson there, looking completely stunned and out of his element.

Then Scott joins them back in the room and leans close to both her and Derek, unsure of what to do with the chaos surrounding them.

"Take her," Derek tells Scott as he manages to roll over a bit. He looks briefly at Jackson and says, "Don't just stand there, help! Go!" That gets them into action pretty quickly. They both grab one of her ends and carry her to an empty room far enough away from the gunfire so that she could be safe. With Jackson.

"Don't move," Scott tells her as he props her up in a chair and Jackson stands off to the side. Stiles gives him a look, because how exactly would she move if she's _paralyzed_?

"You know what I mean," Scott tells her as he makes his way back out of the door and into war raging outside. She hesitates before looking at Jackson, whose face is drained of blood and eyes glued to his human hands.

"What's going on?" Jackson brokenly whispers, his eyes tearing away from his hands to her.

"The bite Derek gave you didn't work very well," she tells him dryly. Stiles isn't very good at explaining what the hell has been going on, as she can't even explain it to herself. Jackson punches the wall in frustration, and she flinches, which means the paralyzing venom is wearing off a bit.

"Stiles," Jackson hisses out, very lizard-like, his voice strained.

"I'll get you all caught up later, but right now, if you haven't noticed yet, World War Three is going on right outside that door, and I would like to try and help my dad and Scott's mom live another day!"

"Where are they? I'll go get them and bring them back over here."

"Take me with you, dammit!" She growls out, completely aware of the crazy gunfire and breaking glass going on just outside of the room.

"You'll be a liability to me, just tell me where they are!" Jackson argues back. The cold truth made her mind pause for a brief moment before relenting to Jackson's wish.

"Down the corridor and to the right is my dad's office. You need to get the spare keys, both the ones for the jail cell and handcuffs are on there. Be safe and hurry back."

Jackson nods in comprehension before opening the door and rushing out, making the hellish noises more clear and frightening before closing the door once more.

Seconds drag on like hours, and as the paralyzing venom starts to wear off a bit more, Stiles gets twitchier and more impatient as she waits for Jackson to bring her dad and Scott's mom back. When the door opens, revealing the three people she desperately wanted to see, she let out a sigh of relief. Her father rushed over to her slumped figure and sat her up a bit straighter.

"What happened to you?" he asked, worry evident on his face.

"Just had a bit of Kanima poisoning," she sees Jackson flinch at the mention, "but I'm getting over it. I'll be able to walk in a few hours or so. How's Melissa handling this?" she asks, unsure of how Scott's mom would react to the supernatural world she and her son had been unwillingly dragged into.

"I told her we would have a discussion later when we aren't in the middle of a battlefield. We need a way out, and now." He looked around the room, going through his mental checklist of escape routes before settling on the window.

"Can I borrow your chair real quick?" he asks Stiles.

"Sure," she replies, "you will just have to find another place to put my body. Wait, that came out wrong." But her father is already picking her up out of her chair and placing her up against the wall.

"I'll listen to you ramble about your word choice later," her dad tells her as he pushes the chair up against the wall under the window, "but right now we need to focus on getting out of here alive."

Stiles' father grunts as he pushes the window up and out, giving them a sufficient way out. Seeing no one below them, he signals Jackson to get out first. "You need to be down there to help Stiles and Melissa out, and I can get out last once I'm sure everything is fine."

Jackson climbs out with no other hesitation, and he looks back through the window once he's sure that he's ready to help them escape.

"Stiles first," Melissa insists, and her father carefully sticks her body through the window and into Jackson's arms. Jackson carefully props her up against the wall and turns around to take Melissa's hand to help her out. Melissa turns to her and prods her a bit.

"Are you sure that you're fine? We can make a quick stop to the hospital. Hell, we might be going anyways. How soon can my son, as a werewolf, heal a gunshot wound?"

"Seeing as he got it a while ago, he should be fine by now. His healing powers will force the bullet out and then sew itself up. It's pretty disgusting really."

The gunshots suddenly stop, and all that's left is the shrill siren in the air. The sheriff picks her up and quietly leads the group around the building. No one is in the front any longer, except for Scott and Derek, who both look worn and exhausted, but are still arguing with each other.

"Well, I did what I was supposed to do! I even had a well thought out plan. Sure, it didn't go like I wanted it too, but it'll work!"

"What will work?" her father dares to ask, but before he can answer, Derek butts in.

"He was working with Gerard!" Stiles is absolutely done with this entire misadventure.

"Both of you, shut up already. Scott, what is your 'brilliant' plan?"

"See, Gerard wants to become a werewolf, even though he's a werewolf hunter, and I figured that's he's trying to get to Derek so that Derek will somehow give him the bite. I messed with his medication so that he can't do that."

"You messed with someone's drugs?!" Melissa screeches out, not understanding who Gerard is and how her son had just potentially killed him.

"Dr. Deaton helped," Scott tacked on helpfully.

"We are going to have a very long conversation, young man," Melissa says as she drags him off to her car, leaving Jackson, Derek, Stiles, and the Sheriff and bit confused, but relieved.

"What about Matt?" Jackson asked.

"We'll figure him out later, right now, you need constant supervision so if Matt does try to control you again, we'll at least have some sort of warning," Stiles tells them, sinking into her father's embrace.

"Both of you are going to be at my house then." That raises a few eyebrows, especially his daughter's. "Look, as much as I don't trust either of you, I agree that Jackson needs constant watching, which can be done with Isaac, Derek, and me. And no Stiles you will not be helping. At most, you can be in the same room with Jackson as long as someone else is in there with you. No offense."

Jackson doesn't even bother to look offended. "I can see why."

Derek ends up driving her Jeep home with Jackson while she rides home with her father. Isaac carries her up to bed and leaves her to her own devices so that he can get filled in on the most recent events.

Stiles takes this opportunity to take the advice everyone had been telling her to do, and went to sleep.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

Nothing welcomes you back into consciousness like the horrible stabbing pain of something being ripped out of your soul. The anguishing sensation lasts roughly a few moments, like something inside of her was slowly dying, slowly drowning, and then the feeling changes into her soul healing and stitching up the ripped open wound.

Isaac rushes into her bedroom, her father not far behind, and leans at her bedside, where she was slowly gasping for air, bent over her stomach to help will away the tormenting pain a bit faster.

"Are you alright?" Isaac asks her as she slowly calms down, rubbing small circles into her back.

"That seems to be everyone's favorite question for me these days," she quips, slowly starting to sit up.

"Your heart rate went nuts! I thought you were having a heart attack. Derek almost abandoned his post to come see if you were alright, if it wasn't for the fact that Jackson was having some sort of similar reaction. Is something wrong with the bond?"

"Besides the fact that is feels like someone ripped a huge band aid off of a fresh gash in my soul, my bond with Jackson actually feels stronger now. Let me see him." Stiles gets out of her bed and walks into the room directed by her dad, only to see Jackson in lizard form, hunching in the corner, hissing at Derek.

Jackson looks up when she enters, but doesn't make any moves to go towards her. He just holds his hand up, the hand that seals their bond. Without hesitation, Stiles strides towards Jackson and places her hand on his. She feels her soul bond cements within her, and lets a sigh escape.

"Well, looks like I'm the Alpha master now. Jackson, you can be human again," she tells him, and Jackson immediately turns back into his human form. She's just immensely glad that he's kept his pants from ripping up the past few times or she would have seen him naked, which wouldn't have been fun for anyone.

"How?" Isaac asks, confusion plain on his face.

"I'm guessing someone killed Matt. Probably Gerard, which would be logical. If he wants to get Derek to bite him, and then kill Derek, it would be optimal to have it done while Derek is paralyzed."

Her dad whistles in astonishment. "You really have this figured out," he tells her, pride overflowing in his voice.

"I think you should be slightly concerned that I figured it out that quick. I think I'm getting way too used to the constant insanity around this town."

"I'm just happy you get to be the smart one of the group," her father tells her.

"Thanks. I doubt he knows about my relationship with the Kanima, in fact, Gerard is probably very mad that he is Kanima-less right now, so you shouldn't fill him in on the fact that I'm his master or he will probably kill me too." They all hiss at that, even her dad, and Stiles is slightly worried that this is starting to effect his behavior.

"Well," her dad starts, "if you're going to return everything thing back to normal, you might want to start getting ready for school," he tells them as he starts making his way out of the room.

"I have to get back to my house," Derek grunts out, a bit relieved that they have most of this mess sorted out.

"Can your dad drop me off at my house?" Jackson asks from the corner he still hadn't left yet.

"Why don't you go ask him yourself?" she asks him.

Jackson groans and heaves himself off of the floor to ask for a ride home. "See you at school then." Stiles nods in understanding before leaving just her and Isaac together.

"Well, this is getting pretty crazy," Isaac says as he starts to head towards the door. "Are we having breakfast?"

"The most I'm making is toast. After last night, be happy that I'm even willing to do that much."

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

School is boring and slow, so Stiles sleeps through it all. She has a game that she has to cheer at tonight, and all of the material is old news to her, so she might as well get some well-deserved rest.

Lunch comes, and they fill everyone in on all of the events of last night. Allison is absolutely horrified.

"I can't believe he-, how could they-, my family is so-," and she decides to smack her head on the table to try and register how to deal with the new problems.

"Just let it go for now, if we wait long enough, trouble will come for us, instead of us looking for trouble and being unprepared when we find it," Scott says in a small bout of wisdom. "Can regular people die from eating mountain ash?" he asks suddenly.

Stiles ponders over this for a moment before answering, "Probably not, but I'm sure if a supernatural creature eats it, then it would explode, or something to that measure. Why?"

"Well, that's how I tampered with Gerard's medicine, and I was hoping that it wouldn't prematurely kill him." Everyone at their table gives Scott a long look before subtly scooting their chairs away from his.

"That's a pretty good idea," Stiles says, stunned. "If Gerard does in-fact, somehow get the bite, he will mostly like be an omega werewolf that would go around killing people, but the mountain ash would effectively kill, or disable him enough to get rid of him. No wonder Dr. Deaton had to help you."

"Hey!"

"I'm very proud of you for thinking that through Scott," Stiles tells him, "I will remember that if I ever need to dispose of a supernatural enemy." That's when everyone scoots their chair away from hers too.

"So, we have another game tonight," Stiles starts.

"I'm not feeling so well today," Lydia cuts in. "Stiles, you and Allison are distraught and tired. I'll just tell Coach Finstock that we won't be cheering today."

Both Allison and Stiles blink at the normally peppy girl, seeing bags under her eyes and a worn out expression.

"Do you need to go to the nurse?" Allison asks Lydia.

"No, no, I'm fine, just not feeling up to cheering today, you know." They both nod in understanding and a bit of pity before the school bell goes off, returning them all to their classes and Stiles to her naps.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

Stiles ends up going to the match anyways, which was her big mistake of the night.

She was down near the bench, having a casual conversation with a few of the guys on the lacrosse team see hasn't talked with in a while, and all of the lights go out.

Pandemonium explodes on the field and in the stands. Screams ring out and people are shoving one another in order to exit the field. Something hits her, hard.

As Stiles loses consciousness, she feels herself land in someone's arms, who roughly take a hold of her and drag her off of the field.

Everything goes dark before they even get to her kidnapper's car.

She wakes up just as they park, though, so she feels as though she took some sort of disorienting nap that left her with a headache in the wrong part of her head.

"Gerard," she hisses out as he manhandles her out of his car.

"Quiet," he hisses back as he proceeds to force her into an abandoned house, then throw her down the stairs towards the basement. Stiles was, of course, anything but silent as she landed roughly on the cold, cemented ground of the basement floor.

"I would be quieter if you were a bit gentler," she growls out as she goes to touch a part of her back that hit a few of the stairs. New bruises to add to her collection. Joy.

"Well, it's not like it matters, no one sensible will be coming this way."

"Scott and Isaac will come for me."

"As I said; no one sensible."

"Listen, I don't know why you've bothered yourself to even consider kidnapping me, but I'm going to let you know that when they find me here they are going to kick your ass to Transylvania and back. How's that for werewolves?"

"I don't think that will quite matter if they find you with your throat slit, your blood drained, and your body dismembered."

A stifling silence occurs before Stiles says, "That would only make them angrier." Gerard loses his patience with her right then and backhands her across the face.

"Listen," he tries to soothe the matter over with his 'caring grandfather' voice. "If you can get me the bite-,"

"Just stop there and beat the shit out of me already," she interrupts him. "I refuse to be won over with anything that you have to offer me."

"In that case…" Gerard trails off as his fist connects with her jaw, sending her flying towards the floor. Stiles loses her consciousness once more around the twelfth time her kicked her.

When she wakes up again, she realizes that she is still somehow alive, and honestly, not too bad off, seeing as nothing is broken. Stiles also realizes that Gerard isn't with her anymore. Hell, no one is around, and it's a bit off setting.

She's just about ready to pull herself together and limp all the way home from wherever the hell she is when the front door slams open and a multitude of feet rush into the house above her.

Stiles doesn't know who just entered an abandoned house, and she is not sticking around in the open to find out either. She tucks herself into a closet, ignoring the creepy bugs that are crawling around her just as the basement door gets shoved open with the same rough treatment. A stampede seems to come down the stairs with vigorous force, and she folds herself further into the closet and hopes that no one will murder her if they do, indeed, find her.

The closet door squeaks as it too, gets torn off of its hinges. Stiles has already buried her face in her knees, waiting for her imminent death.

"Stiles?" a familiar voice comes out. She looks up with joy and flings her arms around Scott's neck. Stiles doesn't cry on him in favor of clinging on him as he carries her out of the small space she had attempted to hide in.

"I'm so glad it's you and not a bunch of hunters coming to finish what Gerard started."

"Did he do this to your face?" Isaac asked as he touched the newly forming bruise on her face.

"If you think that's bad, wait till you see my stomach area." Scott puts her down once they finally leave the house and its basement behind. They let her sit in the back of the truck Boyd drove over so that everyone got a better chance to dote over her.

"Jackson had a heart attack on the field when the lights came back on, and none of understood until we found out that you were missing." Jackson blushed bright red and nudged Isaac for telling something that embarrassed him.

"Everyone freaked out," Jackson tried to amend, causing Stiles to laugh a bit, which irritated her now probably bruised ribs. And she lifted up her shirt only to confirm her theory, bruises littered everywhere on her stomach, and more which were on her upper chest area. More growling caught her attention and she quickly shoved her shirt back down, covering the purplish yellow mess that was now her torso.

"Can I just go home now?" she asked, quite tried after taking a beating from an old man.

"Sure," her father told her as he helped her down from the back of the truck bed and into the police cruiser.

**heyzzheyzzheyzzheyzzheyzz**

It's about two in the morning when Lydia comes and visits her, having heard about the incident from Jackson and Danny.

It's about five minutes after two in the morning when Lydia breaks down and sobs all over her about the hallucinations of the guy who attacked her at winter formal, and somehow bringing him back to life when she hadn't even know that he was dead in the first place.

Stiles listens with the patience of a saint, and when Lydia is finished, she is completely astounded.

It doesn't take her genius to understand that Lydia is taking about Peter Hale.

"And Derek knows about this?" Stiles asks just to make sure.

"I dragged his unconscious body all the way to his burned down home just to bring that man back to life. I'm sure he knows." Lydia had just told her about that, but Stiles had a hard time grasping that small, perfect Lydia could even pick Derek up, let alone drag the man anywhere.

"I think we all need to talk this out then."

"It's two in the morning Stiles," Lydia calls out to her as Stiles starts grabbing her car keys.

"That didn't stop you from coming to me," Stiles points out, finally dragging Lydia somewhere for a change.

When they get to the old subway station, Stiles sees about ten too many hunters plus Gerard in there, which means around eleven enemies in werewolf territory. She realizes that she has an upper hand over them, her crappy metal deathtrap, or her Jeep.

"Hold on Lydia, I'm about to do something completely illegal!" she yells as she hits the gas and rams into the building, taking out three hunters already. She looks over to Gerard who is absolutely livid, smiles at him, and continues to mow down his subordinates that were ganging up on Derek, Scott, Jackson, and Isaac.

One of the hunters manages to slash her tires, so she quickly twists in her seat, rummaging through all of the crap lodged in the back of her Jeep.

"What are you doing?" Lydia asks her nervously as she sees hunters turn towards the car that had run over them.

"Getting some weapons. Would you like the gun or the baseball bat?" Stiles asks cheerily.

"Baseball bat." Stiles hands over the baseball bat to Lydia, rolls down her driver's side window and shoots the nearest hunter in the kneecap. The man drops like a stone, and one of his partners takes aim at her before being tackled by a giant lizard.

All ten men are down for the count, leaving only Gerard, but he's still smiling like he's won. At a snap of his fingers, another hunter walks in, Allison in tow with a knife at her neck.

She hears Scott growl, but Gerard talks over it, demanding all of them to stand down and for all weapons to be thrown out of arms reach.

"Now Derek," Gerard says with that patronizing tone of voice, "give me the bite or I'll kill her." Somewhere, deep down in Stiles' twisted soul, she finds it somewhat interesting that a man would go so far as to sacrifice his granddaughter in order to turn into a rampaging monster just to escape death. The thought is gone as quickly as it comes, because Derek is actually doing what Gerard wants him to do.

Perhaps Derek liked and trusted them all a bit more than he let on. Or maybe he already knew what would happen when he gave Gerard the bite.

With the mountain ash pills the old man had been taking, courtesy of Scott McCall, he would be lucky if he didn't explode on the spot.

Derek bites down on the man's sides, instead to the wrist Gerard tried to offer, and pulls backs quickly, not wanting any his Gerard's blood to get inside of him too.

Gerard let out a maniacal laugh. The very thought that he had won had turned into a complete madman. With the distraction, Derek breaks the arm of the guy holding Allison hostage and helps her over, all of them watching as Gerard looked down at his sides in utter excitement.

Then the black ooze started to rush out, spilling from the bite, his eyes, nose, and mouth where he threw up the substance onto the subway floor.

Stiles looks away from the scene just in time to see a self-conscious Lydia make her way over to a bewildered Jackson.

"Here's your key back," she mutters meekly, before turning on her heel to walk away.

"Wait," Jackson called as his hand landed on Lydia's shoulder. "You kept this? Even after I broke you with you?"

"Yeah. Even though you broke up with me I still love you Jackson."

"What?" Jackson looks completely thrown off by this, turning Lydia around so he can talk to her face and not her back. "What did you say?"

"I said," she starts, tears streaming down her face, "I said that I still love you Jackson!"

Jackson either took it very well or very horribly, because he doubled over on himself, landing hard on the concrete.

"Jackson!" Lydia yells out in concern as everyone else watches the scene with fascination. Stiles feels her bond with Jackson in her soul slip loose, like a knot gently being undone. Her connection with Jackson was gone.

In the next moment, Jackson rises on his own, no longer a Kanima, but a werewolf, and howls at the moon in triumph.

Now that Stiles looked back at the past few months, she realized that was just bound to happen.


End file.
